Free Republic

With less than two weeks before the primary election, State Sen. Doug Mastriano was leading in the polls, and some of the candidates and their aides were holding out hope Trump would use the rally to endorse a rival who could topple the front-runner. But behind the scenes, some of the most influential players in Pennsylvania Republican politics were hatching a plan of their own to stop Mastriano, who they saw as a potential liability in a general election. That afternoon, Andy Reilly, a Republican National Committee member, sent an email to associates of the leading candidates. It included a...

[SNIP] Joseph Mifsud, a former Maltese official who co-directs the London Academy of Diplomacy at the University of Stirling, was identified in media reports after details in the documents pointed to his attendance at a conference in Russia last year. He told the Daily Telegraph Tuesday that he is the professor in the documents, but said that the acquaintance in Moscow with government connections who he introduced Papadopoulos to was only an academic. Mifsud also told the paper that he did not know anything about Russian “dirt” on Clinton, and said that he was upset by the “incredible” claims. He...