George Papadopoulos’ lies to FBI agents about his contacts with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign impeded the investigation into Russian interference, preventing authorities from potentially arresting a witness before he left the United States, according to a Friday court filing.
“The defendant’s lies to the FBI in January 2017 impeded the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election,” the sentencing recommendation from special counsel Robert Mueller says. “The defendant’s lies undermined investigators’ ability to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States.”
The filing says investigators had located the professor in D.C. two weeks after Papadopoulos was interviewed by the FBI on Jan. 27, 2017. The professor left the U.S. on Feb. 11, 2017, and has not returned.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians and Russian intermediaries during the campaign. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 7, and Mueller is recommending a judge sentence Trump’s former foreign policy adviser to up to six months in prison. A fine of $9,500 is also appropriate, Mueller wrote.
Papadopoulos met in London with a Russian-linked professor Joseph Mifsud, who claimed the Russians had thousands of emails that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 campaign.
Mifsud, who is not named in the court filing but has been named in news reports, introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman and a Russian national connected to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Papadopoulos then communicated with the three over a period of months and discussed setting up a meeting between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.
Papadopoulos lied to investigators “on at least a dozen occasions,” falsely saying he communicated with Mifsud before he joined the Trump campaign. After he hired a lawyer and met with investigator again in February 2017, Papadoplous still did not correct his false statements. Instead, he deactivated his Facebook account where he had communicated with the professor and Russian national and bought a new phone.
“The defendant’s lies also hindered the government’s ability to discover who else may have known or been told about the Russians possessing “dirt” on Clinton,” the filing says. “Had the defendant told the FBI the truth when he was interviewed in January 2017, the FBI could have quickly taken numerous investigative steps to help determine, for example, how and where the Professor obtained the information, why the Professor provided the information to the defendant, and what the defendant did with the information after receiving it.”
Months after Papadopoulos was told the Russians had thousands of emails pertaining to Clinton, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta and other Democratic officials during the campaign. An indictment from Mueller alleges Russia stole thousands of emails and passed them along to WikiLeaks, who trickled out their release in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
