Scott Morrison has been accused of prioritising his personal relationship with Donald Trump over Australia’s national interests after agreeing to help with an investigation aimed at discrediting the Mueller inquiry.
The the prime minister agreed to a request from the US President, reportedly made during a phone call in early September, to assist the US Attorney-General William Barr who is gathering evidence for a review of the Mueller probe.
While details of exactly what assistance Mr Trump or Mr Barr were after, the Mueller inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections was triggered by information passed on by Australia’s former high commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer.
US politics lecturer at the Australian National University, Charles Miller, said Mr Barr’s counter investigation was “inappropriate” and it was a “bad idea” for Mr Morrison to get involved.
“Eventually what’s going to happen is there is going to be a president of the United States who is not Donald Trump … who is not a supporter of Trump and when that happens, the fact that Australia, that Scott Morrison was prepared to put itself out for Donald Trump in this way is not going to be good.”
He urged the Australian government needed to take a broader and longer-term approach to preserve its relationship with the United States.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and US President Donald Trump. Source: Getty
Dragged into impeachment scandal
Revelations about the phone call, first reported in the New York Times, come as Mr Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine scandal.
During a phone call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Mr Trump is alleged to have threatened to withhold US aid unless Ukraine investigated his political rival, Joe Biden.
Senior lecturer on international relations at the University of Tasmania, Matt Killingsworth said it was bad timing for Mr Morrison to be seen to be cosying up to Mr Trump.
“How close do you want to get to a president who is only one in four in history who’s going through impeachment proceedings in the House?”
Former special counsel Robert Mueller. Source: AAP
According to the Times report, the transcript of the conversation between the Australian and US leaders was kept in a similar way as details of the Ukraine call to limit those with access to them.
David Smith from the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney said it appeared a pattern was emerging.
“We don’t know if he actually applied any pressure to Scott Morrison in this phone call, but it would fit a pattern of Trump essentially using United States foreign policy to try to pursue his own domestic political ends.
“That is the sort of thing that certainly could trigger more impeachment investigations.”
However, it’s unlikely the Democrats’ impeachment push will be broadened to include the phone call with Mr Morrison.
There are key differences between the two phone calls, with the Ukraine discussion becoming the subject of a whistleblower complaint, forcing the release of the transcript.
Downer key figure in conspiracy theory
Even if the transcript is not released, Mr Morrison is being urged to clarify exactly what he agreed to do for Mr Trump.
Dr Killingsworth has questioned why a further investigation into Australia’s role in triggering the Mueller inquiry would be needed.
“It’s suggesting that the way (Alexander Downer) went about relaying this information was somehow problematic,” Dr Killingsworth told SBS News.
Alexander Downer met George Papadopoulos at a London wine bar in May, 2016. Source: AAP
“Unfortunately it feeds into a number of conspiracy theories that the Trump administration has been putting down with respect of the Mueller investigation.”
One of the favoured conspiracy theories involves Alexander Downer acting as a spy in an international plot to stop Donald Trump getting elected.
“This is the sort of thing that Trump supporters absolutely love to hear… just this endless sense of victimhood,” David Smith said.
“The idea that everyone is out to get Trump, that they didn’t want him to get elected in the first place and now they’re doing everything they can to stop him.”
In his book, Deep State Target, former Trump aide George Papadopolous, who was jailed for 14 days for lying to the FBI, claims Mr Downer set him up.
After the pair met at a London pub in 2016, Mr Downer fed information back to the Australian government including that Russia held damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
This information was later passed on to the US government after the FBI began investigating a Russian hack of her emails and helped trigger the Mueller probe into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Mr Trump has long dismissed the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt” and he claimed the final report cleared him of any wrongdoing.
“Certainly a lot of (Mr Trump’s) allies seem to see Alexander Downer as this key figure in this conspiracy that they’ve imagined,” Dr Smith said.
