Papadopoulos tried futilely for months to arrange a meeting between top campaign aides and Russian officials.

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In asking the court for leniency, Papadopoulos said he made “a terrible mistake, for which I have paid a terrible price, and am deeply ashamed,” and that he was motivated to lie to the FBI try to “create distance between the issue, myself, and the president.”

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In hindsight, he said in court, he recognizes that was wrong and “might have harmed the investigation.”

Papadopoulos’s attorney, Thomas M. Breen, went further, saying “the President of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could,” by calling the investigation fake news and a witch hunt.

After an Australian diplomat reported to American counterparts that Papadopoulos had told him over drinks about the “dirt” approach, the FBI opened its investigation on July 31, 2016 — not long after WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails online.

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Papadopoulos’s lies impeded agents’ investigation at a crucial juncture and hindered their ability to effectively question, challenge or detain Joseph Mifsud, the London professor who had contacted him, prosecutors had told the court. Mifsud left the United States and has not returned.

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The Papadopoulos sentencing came as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe that has led to the indictments or convictions of 32 people.

Papadopoulos, a young oil and gas consultant, was the first Trump official to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

He is now the first campaign adviser sentenced. Three others have pleaded guilty or were convicted of felonies and are awaiting sentencing.

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The sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, agreed to allow Papadopoulos to surrender at a future date and to travel between now and then to New York and California, where his lawyer said he is considering relocating.

Breen told the judge that Papadopoulos was influenced by the words of the president, who had criticized the investigation and the Justice Department on the day he was inaugurated. He added to reporters after the hearing that those words, coming from the candidate he had supported, helped persuade Papadopoulos the investigation was “not as significant as we now all understand it to be.”

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“The message here is to check your loyalty, tell the truth, and help the good guys, even if you have to pay a price,” Breen told Moss during the hearing.

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Speaking aboard Air Force One on Friday ahead of the sentencing, Trump played down his relationship with Papadopoulos and the severity of his charge.

“I see Papadopoulos today, I don’t know Papadopoulos, I don’t know. I saw him sitting in one picture at a table with me — that’s the only thing I know about him,” he said, referencing a March 31, 2016, campaign meeting that Papadopoulos and Trump attended. “They got him on, I guess, on a couple of lies.”

After Papadopoulos’s sentence was handed down, Trump took to Twitter, announcing: “14 days for $28 MILLION - $2 MILLION a day, No Collusion. A great day for America!” Trump appeared to be referring to the cost of the probe, but that figure would be higher than the $16.7 million tally through the end of March reported in recent public data.

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Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the Papadopoulos plea demonstrated Mueller’s team is “conducting a serious, professional investigation.”

Warner said he continues to have “significant questions” about whether Papadopoulos shared his information with other campaign officials and said he would like for the former adviser to be interviewed by the committee.

Federal sentencing guidelines under Papadopoulos’s plea deal called for a penalty between probation and six months in prison.

Moss said he had planned to give Papadopoulos a 30-day term but was persuaded by his courtroom expression of remorse to impose less. But he said incarceration was necessary because Papadopoulos had lied on a matter of grave national importance and the public needed to understand that lying to the FBI is a serious matter.

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Moss described Papadopoulos’s behavior as a “calculated act of self interest over national interest” and noted it took him six months to correct his statements and he did “in the face of proof he lied.”

Asked if he had any comment as he left court, Papadopoulos said, “Not yet.”

But his mother Kiki Papadopoulos told reporters she believed the sentence was “very fair.” She also said that when FBI agents showed up in January 2017 seeking an interview, she advised her son to call a lawyer.

“So everybody said if you only listened to your mother, none of this would have happened,” she said. “I think about it still. I think he learned his lesson.”

A trio of campaign officials — chairman Paul Manafort, deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and national security adviser Michael Flynn — have pleaded guilty or been convicted of various crimes but have not yet been sentenced.

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Gates has testified against Manafort, who was recently convicted in Virginia on bank and tax fraud charges brought by Mueller’s team.

Prosecutors did not recommend a sentence for Papadopoulos, but said up to six months’ jail time was appropriate.

Prosecutor Andrew Goldstein said in court that Papadopoulos “deliberately and repeatedly lied to FBI agents pursuing a highly significant federal investigation,” making a calculated decision “to advance his personal interests” to try to land a high-level administration post.

He ultimately cooperated but, Goldstein added, “he didn’t come close to the standard of substantial assistance.”

Papadopoulos’s attorneys had asked for probation and said in court filings that he misled investigators to try to save his professional ambitions and out of a “perhaps misguided loyalty to his master” but not for more sinister reasons.

His lawyers argued their client volunteered information, such as describing a March 31, 2016, meeting in which candidate Trump “nodded with approval” when he suggested a meeting with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, and that then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) “appeared to also like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into it.”

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That account conflicts with what Sessions, now attorney general, testified before Congress. A spokeswoman for Sessions declined to comment after Papadopoulos’s filing last week.

As part of his sentence, Papadopoulos also will have one year of court supervision, 200 hours of community service and was fined $9,500.

Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.