Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told a joint congressional task force last year the FBI asked him in January 2017 to wear a wire to secretly record Joseph Mifsud, the man who told Papadopoulos the Russians had “dirt” on former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
But according to a newly released transcript of that private testimony, Papadopoulos declined.
In March and April of 2016, Papadopoulos had a series of meetings with Mifsud — who was alleged to have connections to high-ranking Russian officials — during which Mifsud told him that the Russians had obtained thousands of Clinton’s emails.
The FBI believed Papadopoulos told this to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who then relayed this to the U.S. government and prompted an investigation in July 2016. And so the FBI wanted answers from Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos was interviewed by the FBI in early 2017 about his time on the Trump campaign, his contacts with foreigners, and his outreach to Russia. In his October testimony to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, Papadopoulos described three such meetings to the committee, the first two of which took place without a lawyer present.
[Related: George Papadopoulos asks Trump for pardon]
His first meeting was on Jan. 27, 2017, with FBI agent Curtis Heide. It was during this meeting that the special counsel would later accuse him of lying to the FBI. He was convicted of providing false statements later that year.
Papadopoulos said his second meeting with FBI was “probably four or five days later, perhaps even Jan. 31st” of 2017. He said that it was during that meeting that he “was asked to wear this wire.” He said the meeting was “just between Curtis Heide and myself” at Cafe George in Chicago. He did not have an attorney present when he was asked to wear the wire.
Papadopoulos said Heide told him, “We want you to wear a wire to go after Joseph Mifsud or to get some sort of information about him.”
“I told him, I’m not interested in wearing a wire,” Papadopoulos said. “I rejected it.”
Papadopoulos said Heide was not happy with his refusal: “My recollection of his response was, we know what you’re up to. I know everything about you. … This is my second ever encounter with this Agent Curtis Heide.”
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., asked him, “Why did they want you to wear a wire for Mifsud?”
Papadopoulos replied, “It’s known now that this is the individual who told me that the Russians have Hillary Clinton’s emails. So I stated it to them. As we understand, I pled [sic] guilty to the timing and the extent of my connection with this individual, not about that particular issue. So he asked me to wear a wire. And he basically told me that Washington wants answers and you’re at the center of this, something like that to make it seem like I was in some deep trouble if I wasn’t going to wear a wire against this person.”
That’s when he said the FBI brought in more people to question him.
“And then after that, we had the whole entourage from Washington come to Chicago,” Papadopoulos said.
Papadopoulos said his third meeting with the FBI was sometime in February 2017. “In the follow-up meeting I had with counsel present then and the FBI, Curtis Heide, there were lawyers from the FBI who came into Chicago for that meeting,” he said.
Papadopoulos said the FBI’s focus had shifted in the third meeting. “It didn’t seem like they were that interested in Mifsud, actually, even during the third meeting,” he testified. “It was just like, oh, can you give us his email and his telephone number? And I believe I told my lawyers, kindly pass this man’s email and telephone number.”
He said the FBI had narrowed its focus to his discussions with the Trump campaign and with Alexander Downer, though the FBI didn’t mention him by name: “Who did I tell on the campaign about emails, and if I remember talking to Alexander — not Alexander Downer, if I remember talking to a diplomat of a friendly country in a bar in London.”
Papadopoulos said of his third meeting with the FBI, ”I don’t remember them ever saying Alexander Downer’s name until a future phone call.”
On May 10, 2016, while in London, Papadopoulos is believed to have told Downer that Russia was in possession of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Downer passed this information along to the U.S. government which was followed by the FBI initiating an investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016.
Ryan Breitenbach, a staffer on the House Judiciary Committee, said, “You are generally considered the predication for the entire Trump-Russia investigation, which we now understand to have started at the end of July of 2016. So between July of 2016 and January 2017, you are the predicate of the investigation, but you’re not interviewed until January of 2017. Is that correct?”
Papadopoulos said, “That’s correct.”
As part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, and in late 2018 he spent nearly two weeks in prison.
The special counsel’s sentencing memo to the District Court for the District of Columbia read in part: “The defendant lied in order to conceal his contacts with Russians and Russian intermediaries during the campaign and made his false statements to investigators on January 27, 2017, early in the investigation, when key investigative decisions, including who to interview and when, were being made.”
Mueller claimed that “instead of telling the truth, however, the defendant repeatedly lied throughout the interview in order to conceal the timing and significance of information the defendant had received regarding the Russians possessing ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton, as well as his own outreach to Russia on behalf of the campaign.”
“The defendant’s false statements were intended to harm the investigation and did so,” Mueller said.
