Australia helped trigger Donald Trump's Russia investigation thanks to a single 'romantic encounter'

A single romantic encounter with George Papadopoulos set off a domino effect and ultimately led to the Australian government informing Washington about what they knew about Russian hacking efforts.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that their parent company Fairfax Media interviewed a woman who was involved with Papadopoulos who also happened to know Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. Alexander Downer. Papadopoulos boasted to the woman about his connections. That woman then told Downer what she had heard from Papadopoulos and Downer requested a meeting with the Trump aide.

The two met in May 2016 at the Kensington Wine Rooms and Papadopoulos told him everything he knew about the "Russian dirt file" on Hillary Clinton and her campaign, including thousands of hacked emails. According to The Herald, that night helped spark the FBI probe into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.

While spilling his guts to a man he hardly knows might seem implausible, The Herald explained that "Downer is known for his fondness for expansive conversation over wine."

Senate Republicans have argued that the FBI has used the Christopher Steele dossier as a guide on the Russia investigation and that Steele lied to the FBI. However, according to reports, the FBI didn't have the Steele dossier at the point that Papadopoulos was meeting with Downer in May. It was only after the Wikileaks document dump in July that Downer sent an official cable about the conversation with the Trump campaign aide to the Australian capitol. That was the same month that Steele also shared the dossier with the FBI.

Leaders in the Australian government then shared the conversation with Washington. The Herald explained that the government "was well aware it was in the fraught position of telling authorities under a Democratic administration that a staffer from the Republican nominee's campaign had foreknowledge of the Russian hacking."

"Alexander was doing what a High Commissioner should do, finding pathways into the campaign team," Australian Strategic Policy Institute director Peter Jennings told the paper.

"He professionally reported it back to head office. If you had what seemed to be reasonable information about the possibility of collusion, you would want to tell American internal intelligence appropriately. What seems to have happened is we've done the right thing."

It was Joe Hockey, the Australian ambassador to Washington, who managed the flow of information to the FBI. By the end of July, the intelligence services were reporting with relative certainty that the Russians were behind the Democratic National Committee hack.

Papadopoulos has already plead guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with the investigation.