UK Professor Mifsud who linked Trump campaign with Russia dead

Prof. Mifsud contacted George Papadopoulos (above)
 who contacted the Trump campaign

The London-based professor, Joseph Misfud who told former Donald Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton is missing and he may be dead.

Filings by lawyers to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said Mifsud is missing and may be dead.

According to Bloomberg News, the committee indicated that an investigator had been used to find Mifsud, who had disappeared for months, and was told the Maltese professor may be dead.

“The DNC’s counsel has attempted to serve Mifsud for months and has been unable to locate or contact him. In addition, public reports have said he has disappeared and hasn’t been seen for months,” DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.

Mifsud was reportedly teaching at a private university in Rome before he vanished late last year, shortly after his name emerged as a key figure in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The professor had reportedly not been in contact with prosecutors in Italy seeking to question him over allegations of financial wrongdoing and his fiancé told Business Insider earlier this year that she could not reach him.

The DNC’s revelation came in court filings Friday in their lawsuit against Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. According to Bloomberg, the DNC said it believed all of the defendants in the case had been served, with the exception of Mifsud.

A hearing in that lawsuit is scheduled for next week in federal court in New York.

Papadopoulos was sentenced in a separate legal case Friday to two weeks in prison for lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Mifsud during the campaign, the first sentence for a former campaign aide as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.

Mifsud was reportedly known to have high-level contacts in the Russian government, including with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s current foreign minister. During the campaign Papadopoulos told the president and now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that Russia was interested in setting up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read more in Thehill.com