The indictment of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, on charges of conspiracy and fraud was the big news from special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation Monday morning. But court documents also implicate a lower-level aide who could prove an even bigger headache for the Trump administration: former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
Documents reveal that Papadopoulos secretly pleaded guilty to misleading the FBI about his April 2016 communications with a Kremlin-linked “professor” who hoped to set up a meeting between Russian government officials and the Trump campaign. The professor had told Papadopoulos that Russia could provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos falsely told investigators that his communications with the professor had predated his involvement with the Trump campaign.
“In truth and in fact, however, defendant Papadopoulos learned he would be an advisor to the Campaign in early March, and met the professor on or about March 14, 2016; the professor only took interest in defendant Papadopoulos because of his status with the Campaign; and the professor told defendant Papadopoulos about the “thousands of emails” on or about April 26, 2016, when defendant Papadopoulos had been a foreign policy adviser to the Campaign for over a month,” previously sealed documents read.
Papadopoulos’s repeated attempts to establish a meeting between Trump and the Kremlin, which the Washington Post first reported in August, were reportedly rejected by more senior campaign aides, including campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis and Paul Manafort himself, who worried about the possible legal concerns such a meeting would entail.
As Mueller’s investigation began, Papadopoulos repeatedly attempted to diminish his attempts to set up these meetings, characterizing the professor as “a nothing” and “just a guy talking up connections or something.”
“In truth and in fact, however, defendant Papadopoulos understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials (and had met with some of those officials in Moscow immediately prior to telling defendant Papadopoulos about the “thousands of emails”) and, over a period of months, defendant Papadopoulos repeatedly sought to use the professor’s Russian connections in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials,” the documents read. “Through his false statements and omissions, defendant Papadopoulos impeded the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the Campaign and the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”
