Australia's U.S. ambassador told the FBI about Trump aide George Papadopoulos's claim that Moscow had email dirt on Hillary – but did THAT really launch the Russia probe?

• Australian media are confirming that a 28-year-old Trump campaign aide met with an Aussie official in May 2016 about Russia's email dirt on Hillary Clinton 
• Also confirmed: Australia's U.S. ambassador walked the FBI through what his country learned from a tipsy young George Papadopoulos 
• But whether or not those disclosures launched the FBI's Russia-related probe of Trumpworld is still a very open question despite New York Times reporting
• Papadopoulos may have been referring to existing media reports when he gabbed about 'thousands' of emails Russia obtained through hacking
• FBI never sought to interview Papadopoulos until January 2017
• Intelligence agencies may be trying to mask the scent of the 'dirty dossier,' a thinly sourced opposition research file on Donald Trump
• One Justice Department deputy's wife was involved in producing it, and  another texted his lover about needing an 'insurance policy' against Trump winning

After a low-level Donald Trump campaign aide told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that Russia's government had 'thousands' of emails that could prove damaging to Hillary Clinton, the Aussie ambassador to the U.S. personally walked American officials through the details.

It's still unclear how much 28-year-old George Papadopoulos knew, and whether – as the New York Times now claims – the revelation shocked the FBI into a counterintelligence probe of the Trump team's Russia ties beginning that July.

But the Sydney Morning Herald has confirmed that a drink-fueled gabfest between Papadopoulos and Australia's High Commissioner to Britain Alexander Downer did happen.

Ambassador Joe Hockey spoke with the FBI months later, after the July 2016 WikiLeaks release of nearly 20,000 emails from inside the Democratic National Committee.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October to a single charge of lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts, and is understood to be cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

But since the Times' December 30 disclosure of his conversation with Downer, new questions have arisen about the likelihood that it launched the Mueller probe at all.

The competing theory holds that it stemmed from a largely discredited 'dossier' of salacious claims about Trump, which was pid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through a law firm, Perkins Coie.

among other things, the dossier described a Trump candidacy compromised by Moscow-gathered surveillance of the future president cavorting with prostitutes.

The Democrats' lawyers paid Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm, to contract with retired British spy Christopher Steele, who had manned the UK's Russia intelligence desk a quarter-century earlier.

Steele produced the dossier for the firm which also employed Nellie Ohr, the wife of then-associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr.

Mr. Ohr was later relieved of his duties after the nature of his wife's employment was discovered by Mueller's team.

Placing Papadopoulos instead at the center of the Mueller probe's genesis would assign to him a level of knowledge that surpassed what the CIA and other American intelligence agencies possessed at the time.

As he became a footnote in history due to his guilty plea, the best-known factoid about the foreign policy naif was that he padded his résumé by falsely claiming to have participated in a Model United Nations during his student years.

Court documents establish that Papaopoulos relied for his Russia knowledge on Joseph Mifsud, a professor at a now-defunct London academy with contacts inside Russia's foreign ministry.

The Times reported that what Papadopoulos relayed to Downer was Mifsud's claim – via Russian officials – that Moscow had 'dirt' on Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails.'

By the time Downer and Papadopoulos surveyed the menu of the Kensington Wine Rooms, media reports were already rife with stories about a Romanian hacker code-named 'Guccifer' who had absconded with Clinton-related emails by hacking her longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal on Russia's behalf.

The Times' dot-connecting bypasses Guccifer's and Blumenthal's stars in the Clinton email constellation, but Mifsud could have been referring to them.

Then-FBI director James Comey opened his initial counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign on July 15, 2016, seeking evidence that it was colluding with Russia to impact the result of the presidential election.

That date is rouhly aligned with the timeframe of Ambassador Hockey's dislcosures to the FBI about Papadopoulos' discussion with Downer.

But the FBI, according to court documents, never spoke with Papadopoulos until January 15, 2017 – well after the election and just days before Trump's inauguration.

By then, the FBI had co-authored a joint report with the Department of Homeland Security blaming malicious Russian actors for a series of cyber hacks related to the election.

The Times published its reporting on Papadopoulos' role based on 'four American and foreign officials with direct knowledge' of what Australian government officials told their U.S. counterparts.

The paper's reporting did not include any indication that U.S. intelligence agencies sought warrants for surveillance of Papadopoulos afterward.

The Times also allowed that 'exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said' to Downer 'is unclear.'

The FBI did, however, apply for a federal warrant to surveil Carter Page, a Trump campaign advisor, after he returned from a June 2016 trip to Moscow.