Yesterday the day of the hearing of the premier at Copasir. At the end of the meeting with the Committee, Conte immediately attacked the media, accusing them of having reconstructed in recent days, imaginative plots on the Russiagate affair and the alleged Italian implications. It was an ordinary hearing, linked to the half-yearly report, but during which, the prime minister says, "I didn't shirk" from talking about the Russiagate case.
During the mini press conference Conte delivered to the one he has been calling "adversary" for days now: where the prime minister clarified "because Salvini does not feel the responsibility to clarify, Salvini was Minister of the Interior, is a candidate to be premier asking for full powers but lacks institutional sensitivity".
But Conte's jab does not stop, he goes into the merits of the Russian funds case: "here we are beyond an opinion. Perhaps Salvini should clarify that he was dealing with Savoini with the highest Russian authorities, the Minister of the Interior, the head of Russian intelligence. It should make it clear to us and to the Northern League voters".
Another node to which the prime minister could be called is to make a point about the reorganization of services. Because in Conte's press conference on Russiagate there is an "unspoken" snaking in the premier's head: someone in Italian intelligence facilitated the leak of news that triggered the storm. And it is unlikely that that someone is Gennaro Vecchione, chosen by the premier at the head of the Dis. It is starting from this point that Conte could intervene having, as qualified sources underline, already an idea of where to concentrate his action
However, there are still some obscure points regarding the relations between the Italian secret services and the US justice minister William Barr. Shadows that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte failed to dispel during public statements, but not even during his hearing before the Copasir. And they all point to the key question left unanswered: Why did the head of government authorize those direct contacts instead of managing them personally? Barr is a Trump administration politician. And therefore Conte could and should have participated in the meetings instead of "making available" to another country, even if an "ally", the heads of the intelligence apparatus.
Now the director of Dis Gennaro Vecchione, Aise Luciano Carta and Aisi Mario Parente will have to answer the questions of the parliamentarians of the Control Committee. Also because it was the Count himself who admitted that "after the request arrived in June through diplomatic channels»Have been«carried out searches in the archive, found documents, carried out investigations».
The goal of the United States, as Conte confirmed, was to find out what happened to Joseph Mifsud, the professor at the Link University in Rome who plays a key role in Russiagate. In 2016, he was the one who revealed to Trump's staff that the Russians have numerous compromising emails against Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. He meets emissary George Papadopoulos several times but suddenly disappears a year later. And Trump is convinced that Midsuf is actually an agent provocateur of some Western secret services (England, Italy and Australia) with a specific goal: to prove that the American president had tried to frame Clinton.
Conte, with reference to Barr's letter, states that he speaks generically of the activity of the American agents who are in Italy. However, he decides to give the green light to the collaboration immediately. And he talks about it with Vecchione. Controls are activated, but the premier does not clarify what type of investigations have been carried out. In 2016 the government was not led by Conte and there were other heads of the secret services. Did the checks carried out this summer concern the activity of the predecessors ?, writes the Corriere della Sera. This is one of the questions that Copasir will now have to answer through the hearings of the heads of the services that will be convened in the coming weeks. But it is not the only one. Other open questions include the information delivered to Barr. Officially Conte reiterated that no useful news was found and therefore nothing was revealed to the American Minister of Justice. So why were two meetings organized? If on August XNUMXth it was already clear that Italy did not have useful data, why a month and a half later was a meeting extended to the directors of the two agencies?
Trump in about 15 days will make known the "Barr report" which contains all the information gathered by the politician during his tour in Europe.
The details that emerge could embarrass both the Prime Minister and the intelligence structures because, as was pointed out at Copasir, requests were met in a confidential manner, while a transparent procedure should have been followed that passed through Palazzo Chigi and the Ministry of Justice. Conte also specified that "it was a preliminary investigation, otherwise we would have had to proceed with letters rogatory".
Net of the “imaginative” media reports and reconstructions, no one will ever know the truth since the three-hour conversation between the Prime Minister and Copasir are, by law, classified.
https://www.facebook.com/GiuseppeConte64/videos/969897530028889/