Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last year to misleading FBI agents concerning his contacts with Russians, was encouraged to do an interview with a Russian news agency by the Trump campaign, according to a new report.
After being approached by the news agency, Papadopoulos reached out to receive approval from the campaign.
“You should do it,” Bryan Lanza, the campaign’s deputy communications director, said in an email in September 2016. Lanza noted that it would assist the United States’ “partnership with Russia.”
The emails, reported by the Washington Post, portray Papadopoulos as routinely attempting to establish meetings or interviews with foreign officials and groups.
At one point, Papadopoulos told the national security advisory group that he could coordinate a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, court documents cited by the report say. Additionally, he passed along an email to campaign officials detailing how Russian foreign ministry officials would consider a visit with Trump.
The proposal was denied and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort told his associate Rick Gates that they must “communicate that DT is not doing these trips.”
So far, Papadopoulos is the only Trump associate known to have told prosecutors that he had prior knowledge that Russians had emails that could be detrimental to Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 rival. However, it is not certain if Papadopoulos communicated to other campaign officials that the Russians had obtained the damaging information.
The Trump campaign sought to distance itself after Papadopoulos’ guilty plea was revealed in October. Trump himself tweeted that “few people knew the young, low-level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin during the campaign.
Trump has called the probe a “witch hunt” and maintained that his campaign never colluded with the Russians.
