Joseph Mifsud, a former politics fellow at Stirling university, went into hiding in October 2017

The US government has found no evidence to support claims that a Stirling academic who prompted an investigation into President Trump’s ties to Russia was an FBI spy.

Joseph Mifsud, a former politics fellow at the Scottish university, was accused of being a “western intelligence operative” sent to lure the Trump campaign into colluding with Russia.

The US department of justice began investigating allegations of “political bias” in the FBI last year, at the request of Mr Trump’s attorney-general and his Republican allies.

Its conclusions, published yesterday, found no evidence to substantiate a Republican conspiracy theory that Professor Mifsud was sent to entrap the 2016 campaign in a “manufactured Russia-collusion narrative”.

George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, claimed that Professor