United States Attorney General William Barr traveled to Italy last week in attempt to somehow gather information to support a wild conspiracy theory that Russia did not attack the 2016 United States presidential election, and in fact, Donald Trump was the victim of a set-up by a “deep state” plot, according to a Washington Post report on Tuesday.

While in the Italian capital of Rome last week, Barr listened to a previously secret recording of shadowy Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, who has been suspected of being a Russian agent by U.S. intelligence agencies for “several years” before the mysterious academic became a central figure in the 2016 election Trump-Russia collusion scandal, as The Inquisitr reported.

The investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia in their covert operation to sway the 2016 election in his favor began when an Australian diplomat revealed to U.S. authorities that a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, had been told that the Russian government was in possession of “dirt” on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails, as The Inquisitr reported.

The person who passed the information on the Russian “dirt” to Papadopoulos was Mifsud. But Papadopoulos has since claimed, without evidence, that Mifsud was not a Russian agent at all, but was, in fact, working for agencies within the U.S. that were already engaging in a conspiracy against Trump.

Joseph Mifsud is a Kremlin agent tied to Putin and Trump's 2016 Russia adviser—now Kremlin employee—Dimitri Simes. If he's falsely telling Trump/Barr he works for the FBI—which the FBI 100% denies—it's *literally* the President and AG working with a foreign power against America. pic.twitter.com/orv4cyziL7 — Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) October 1, 2019

Mifsud has gone missing since November of 2017. According to a report by Forensic News founder Scott Stedman, via Twitter on September 30, Mifsud’s lawyer Stephan Roh who also allegedly has close ties to Russia — Stedman describes Roh as a “Russian asset” — was in possession of a “deposition” by Mifsud.

Barr listened to a recording of a deposition from Mifsud on this trip to Rome, according to a report Tuesday by The Daily Beast. Mifsud gave the deposition to Italian police when he applied for protection around the time of his disappearance, according to The Daily Beast reporting, and in that deposition he explained “why people might want to harm him.”

Another Italian government source told The Daily Beast that Barr had been shown “other evidence” that the Italians had collected regarding Mifsud, as well. But the nature of that “other evidence” remains unclear.

Barr’s overseas trip is part of a supposed investigation into “the origins of the U.S. counterintelligence probe of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign,” according to a statement by the U.S. Justice Department published by The Daily Beast.

Mifsud gave an interview in which he denied any wrongdoing, just prior to his disappearance last year. Papadopoulos was introduced to Mifsud by Italian lawyer and model Simona Mangiante, who is now married to Papadopoulos, The Daily Beast reported.