George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, reportedly said in an email that a pre-election meeting with Russian officials had been agreed to by the Trump campaign.
An FBI agent’s affidavit cites the email, which was sent to a contact affiliated with the Russian government, endorsing criminal charges against Papadopoulos, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. However, the email is not included in court documents that outline the guilty plea and his commitment to assist special counsel Robert Mueller, who is spearheading the investigation to determine if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
The records, unsealed on Monday, show Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to misleading FBI agents concerning his contacts with Russians during a January interview.
Prosecutors did not reveal why the email was omitted when outlining Papadopoulos’s offenses, and it is possible investigators deemed the claims to be false.
Papadopoulos wrote a Russian contact to suggest a meeting for August or September in the United Kingdom. He allegedly sent the email shortly before the Republican National Convention in 2016 and noted that it would include “my national chairman and maybe one other foreign policy adviser,” along with members of Putin’s office and Russia’s foreign ministry. Papadopoulos then said it had been approved by “our side.”
However, there is no evidence to suggest the meeting ever took place. He didn’t state the names of campaign officials, but Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager at the time. Manafort and his associate Rick Gates were recently indicted by a federal grand jury on a dozen charges, including conspiracy. They pleaded not guilty.
The Trump administration has attempted to distance itself from Papadopoulos this week
“I think Papadopoulos is an example of somebody doing the wrong thing while the president’s team did the right thing,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Monday. “What Papadopoulos did is lie and that’s on him, not on the campaign and we can’t speak to that.”
“This was a campaign volunteer, he wasn’t somebody who was a senior adviser. He played a minimal role,” she said.
