George Papadopolous, a former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, admitted to lying to the FBI in January, before Robert Mueller took over the probe. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Former Trump campaign adviser pleads guilty to lying to FBI about Russia contacts Papadopoulos said he had been told as early as April 2016 that Russia had 'thousands of emails' related to Hillary Clinton.

A foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign secretly pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to the FBI and said he had been told as early as April 2016 that Russia had "thousands of emails" related to Democrat Hillary Clinton, court records made public on Monday show.

George Papadopoulos, 30, entered the guilty plea in a closed courtroom in Washington on Oct. 5, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office announced. Papadopoulos is cooperating with Mueller’s prosecution team, according to a plea agreement released Monday.


The court records offer the clearest evidence yet that a Trump-connected individual knew Russia had obtained thousands of emails related to Clinton, months before the leaks began of exchanges hacked from Democrats' email accounts. Papadopoulos' agreement was also the first guilty plea to be made public in Mueller's long-running probe of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

The documents became public on the same day an indictment was unsealed against Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates for money laundering and other charges. But unlike the 12 counts against that duo, the single felony count against Papadopoulos directly relates to 2016 presidential campaign activity.

An attorney for Papadopoulos, Thomas Breen, declined to comment. “We will have the opportunity to comment on George’s involvement when called upon by the Court at a later date. We look forward to presenting all the facts that led to the events that resulted in this charge," Breen said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to distance the president from Papadopoulos on Monday, referring to him as a "volunteer" whose role with the Trump campaign had been "extremely limited." At no point was Papadopoulos acting in an official capacity for the campaign, Sanders said, saying he was part of an advisory committee that met only once.

"We've been saying from day one there's been no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion and nothing in the indictment today changes that at all," Sanders said. "I'm not here to speak on behalf of the, you know, thousands of people who may have volunteered on the campaign."

The 30-year-old was photographed at a meeting with Trump, and the president listed him among his advisers during a 2016 meeting with The Washington Post's editorial board, characterizing him as an "excellent guy."

In the agreement, Papadopoulos admitted to lying to the FBI in an initial interview in January — shortly after Trump's inauguration and months before Mueller took over the probe — about contacts with an overseas professor with Russian government contacts and with a representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Papadopoulos acknowledged in the initial interview that the professor claimed the Russian government had "dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails." However, Papadopoulos admitted in his plea that he had falsely told the FBI the contacts took place a year or so before he joined the Trump campaign.

It is unclear exactly which emails Papadopoulos believed Russia had or how they had obtained them. But in July 2016, the website Wikileaks published emails hacked from the accounts of the Democratic National Committee. Trump, then the Republican nominee, subsequently called on Russia to hack and release Clinton's own emails from her time as secretary of state.

Later in the campaign, hacked emails from Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, were also made public. The intelligence community has said the hacks appeared to be part of a wide-ranging effort by Moscow to meddle in the 2016 election and to hurt Clinton. Mueller's investigation includes whether any Trump campaign aides helped Russia with that effort.

A statement of facts Papadopoulos agreed to as part of the plea also shows he repeatedly discussed his Russia-related contacts with top campaign officials, including a potential meeting between the then-Republican candidate and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The encounter never took place, but the court filing notes that an unnamed campaign "supervisor" approved a trip to Moscow by Papadopoulos and another foreign policy adviser.

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Previous reports said then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski approved a trip to Russia by Trump adviser Carter Page. Lewandowski and Page were not accused of any crime in the cases unsealed Monday.

J.D. Gordon, a former Defense Department spokesman who acted as a national security adviser to the Trump campaign along with Jeff Sessions, now Trump's attorney general, said Papadopoulos acted outside the campaign's chain of command.

“I was surprised to learn today what George Papadopoulos was up to during the campaign. He obviously went to great lengths to go around me and Senator Sessions. Presidential campaigns are like that," Gordon said. "It’s very hard to know what every single person is doing, especially since some folks deliberately go around the chain of command or circumvent it. George Papadopoulos obviously represents an extreme case.”

Papadopoulos’ stint on the Trump campaign followed a brief stint advising the campaign of Ben Carson, who dropped out of the race after Trump gained steam.

Carson’s campaign manager Barry Bennett — who went on to join Trump’s campaign after Carson dropped out — said he never interacted with Papadopoulos after leaving Carson’s camp.

“He came on in December and left after Iowa, so he was on 6 weeks or so. He was 28 then. Very junior. Have no idea how he got on Trump list,” Bennett said in an email. “Did not and would not have suggested it.

The court document also appears to reference Manafort. In May 2016, Papadopoulos sent an email to a "high-ranking campaign official" saying, "Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite sometime and have been reaching out to me to discuss." The official forwarded the note to another campaign aide and said: "Let[']s discuss. We need someone to communicate that OT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal."

In August, the Washington Post reported that Manafort had received a similar email from Papadopoulos and forwarded it to Gates, saying, "We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips."

Shortly after Papadopoulos’ second round of questioning by the FBI in February, he deactivated his Facebook account, ceased using his cell phone number and switched to a new one, according to the factual statement he admitted to in his guilty plea.

The former campaign adviser was arrested July 27 at Dulles airport outside Washington as he arrived on a flight from Munich, court records show. The day after Papadopoulos' arrest, he appeared in court in Alexandria, Va., and was released on his own recognizance after prosecutors did not seek his detention.

While the initial complaint in the case charged Papadopoulos with both making false statements and obstruction of justice, that charge was dropped when the plea deal was filed early last month.

The felony false statements charge carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison, but sentences are typically much shorter than that, especially when a defendant pleads guilty and cooperates with prosecutors.

Papadopoulos' guilty plea was unsealed Monday morning just as Trump took to Twitter to downplay the significance of the Manafort and Gates charges and to note that they did not appear to relate to the campaign.

"Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????" Trump asked, adding: "Also, there is NO COLLUSION!"

The president did not immediately address the Papadopoulos plea, which has a much stronger nexus to the 2016 Trump campaign.

Kyle Cheney, Darren Samuelsohn, Josh Meyer and Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.

