Campaign foreign policy aide who attempted to arrange Putin meeting is first to be charged over foreign attempts to interfere in 2016 election

For months the White House has denied collusion with Russia. But in court documents released on Monday, new evidence emerged of an ambitious plot by a former Trump foreign policy aide to arrange a meeting with Vladimir Putin on behalf of the future president. The plan featured a mysterious London professor, a female Russian national inaccurately referred to as “Putin’s niece” – and bold promises that the Kremlin was ready to dispense “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

The most explicit evidence yet of a campaign official’s attempts to work with the Kremlin emerged in an indictment brought by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who since May has headed the investigation into Trump-Russia contacts.



Quick guide Who are the key Russian players in the Trump collusion accusations? Show Hide Natalia Veselnitskaya A Russian lawyer whose work has focused on ending US sanctions on Russia and who met with Trump representatives Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort at Trump Tower in June 2016. Read further. Sergey Kislyak Until recently, the Russian ambassador to the US. A hub for contacts with Trump representatives including Kushner, attorney general Jeff Sessions, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the president himself. Read further. Sergey Gorkov The Kremlin-connected head of Russian state investment bank Vnesheconombank. He met with Kushner during the presidential transition, but “no specific policies were discussed”, according to Kushner. Read further. Dimitri Simes President of the Center for the National Interest, a Washington thinktank, which hosted an April 2016 foreign policy speech by Trump. Trump, Sessions and Kushner appear to have met with Kislyak at the event, although both Kushner and Sessions have said any meeting was only in passing and they don’t recall what was discussed. Read further.

By Tom McCarthy

It came the same day that Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates were indicted for conspiracy, money laundering and other charges, and gave themselves up to the FBI.

Up until now George Papadopoulos, a Greek-American who served as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign and once lived in London, has played a minor role in the scandal. But on Monday he emerged as the first person to agree to cooperate with the Mueller inquiry under the terms of a plea agreement. He also admitted to lying to investigators at the FBI.

Russia inquiry charges: how close does this get to Trump? Read more

The 14-page “statement of offence” unsealed on Monday sets out how in the spring and summer of 2016, Papadopoulos sought tirelessly to forge ties to Kremlin officials – then misled the FBI, and tried to cover up what he had done.

According to the indictment, the FBI questioned Papadopoulos on 27 January 2017, a week after Trump was inaugurated. In that interview, Papadopoulos lied. Or, as the FBI put it, “made material false statements and material omissions”.

In particular, he tried to dupe federal agents about the extensive nature of his contacts with Kremlin officials, and when he first learned that the Russians hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Papadopoulos joined Trump’s campaign early in March 2016. Days later he spoke to an unnamed Trump “supervisor” who spelled out the campaign’s principal foreign policy objective: “an improved US relationship with Russia”.

A week later Papadopoulos flew to Rome where he bumped into a London-based “professor of diplomacy” from a “Mediterranean country”. The professor – identified by the Washington Post as Joseph Mifsud – claimed to have “substantial connections with Russian government officials”.

Mifsud is reportedly based at an institute called the London Academy of Diplomacy. He is a Maltese former foreign office diplomat, reports say. Interviewed by the Washington Post in August, he said he was not connected to the Russian government.

Papadopoulos, it appeared, saw an opportunity to impress his campaign bosses. According to the FBI, the professor was initially “uninterested” in developing ties, until Papadopoulos revealed his Trump connection. After that he became very keen indeed.

On 24 March there was a follow-up meeting in London. The professor brought a “Russian female national” along with him, who Papadopoulos described in an email afterwards as “Putin’s niece”. (Putin does not have a niece.)

Play Video 1:24 Paul Manafort’s attorney calls charges 'ridiculous' – video

Papadopoulos told the FBI that his exchanges with this woman were pleasantly innocuous, and amounted to little more than “Hi, how are you?” But this was another fib: in the meantime, he had emailed the Trump campaign supervisor to say he was working on setting up a high-level meeting between “us” and the “Russian leadership”.

The “campaign supervisor” replied: “Great work.”

Then on 31 March, Papadopoulos took part in a meeting in Washington with Trump, the Republican frontrunner, and his national security team. He was pictured seated four chairs away from the candidate. Papadopoulos made an interesting pitch, according to the FBI: he told those seated around the table he could broker a ground-breaking meeting between Putin and Trump.

Back in London, Papadopoulos worked with his new friends to make this happen. He sent emails to the Russian woman, who replied in enthusiastic terms, and to the professor, who told him that he was travelling imminently to Moscow. On 18 April the professor emailed from Moscow introducing Papadopoulos to an influential “individual” with links to Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs.

This individual appears to be Ivan Timofeev, a Russian official first identified by the Washington Post in August. Timofeev works for the Moscow-based Russian International Affairs Council. He also leads a programme at the Valdai discussion club, a government organisation that invites western academics for an annual audience with Putin. (Timofeev declined to comment. He has said of Papadopoulos that “George didn’t understand the Russian internal political landscape well”.)

On his return to the UK the professor brought intriguing news. In late April, over breakfast in a “London hotel”, he told Papadopoulos that Russia had got “dirt” on Clinton: “They [the Russians] have dirt on her ... they have thousands of emails.” After this bombshell Papadopoulos “continued to communicate” with the Trump campaign and his Russian government interlocutors.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The indictment against George Papadopoulos reveals evidence of an ambitious plot to arrange a meeting with Putin on behalf of Trump. Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AP

At this point, the Democrats had no idea they had been hacked. They discovered their servers had been breached a few weeks later. Meanwhile, according to non-FBI sources, the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ was passing information to the CIA setting out secret meetings between Trump officials and Russian intelligence operatives. The hacking scandal was not made public until June, two months after Trump’s aide had learned of it in London.

According to the FBI, Papadopoulos was upbeat during this period. He told Trump’s “senior policy adviser” he had received “some interesting messages coming in from Moscow” and passed on that Russia was interested “in hosting Mr Trump”. He thanked the professor for his “critical help” in setting up a possible meeting. And added: “It’s history-making if it happens.”

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Papadopoulos was making history, but for all the wrong reasons.

Across May, June and August there were further emails and updates, plus messages relayed to the Trump campaign with the unambiguous subject line: “Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump.” Papadopoulos even offered to fly to Moscow himself, if the candidate couldn’t make it. Despite his efforts the trip never happened.

Q&A Can presidents pardon themselves? Show Hide It is not clear whether it is possible for US presidents to pardon themselves. The constitution does not explicitly prohibit self-pardons, but it has never been done before. The nearest precedent is supplied by Richard Nixon, who sought advice on the question as he faced the prospect of impeachment for obstruction of justice and abuse of power following the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. Nixon’s personal lawyer advised him that he could pardon himself, but the justice department said he could not, according to Brian C Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University whose recent book, Constitutional Cliffhangers, devotes a chapter to the issue. Nixon resigned and was eventually pardoned by his successor, president Gerald Ford. "It really is uncharted territory," Kalt said.​ "Anyone who’s certain is wrong."

Few of these details were known until Mueller’s indictment was unsealed on Monday.

In January 2017 agents interviewed Papadopoulos in Chicago, Illinois, after warning him that lying would be a “federal offence”. He did so anyway – downplaying his contacts, scuffing the timeline and hiding the extensive nature of the email trail.

On 16 February the FBI interviewed him again. The following day Papadopoulos changed his cellphone number and deleted his Facebook account – which he had had since 2005 – in an apparent attempt to bury his exchanges with the professor and the foreign affairs-connected “individual”.

Papadopoulos was arrested without publicity or fuss at Dulles international airport in July. Later he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is described as a “proactive co-operator”.

On Monday, the White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, dismissed the revelations of the plea agreement, describing Papadopoulos as a “volunteer” on the campaign. But there can be little doubt that the story is deeply problematic for the president.

The Mueller investigation is ongoing and more revelations are likely. Trump’s agony may only just be beginning.

