When former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos stepped off a flight from Germany at Dulles Airport outside Washington last July, he had no inkling of the unwelcome surprise in store for him: FBI agents waiting to place him under arrest.

For the 29-year-old Chicago native, it was going to be a long night.


Jail records obtained by POLITICO show that Papadopoulos was booked at the city detention center in Alexandria, Virginia, at 1:45 a.m. the next day.

Despite the late arrival at the jail and the fact that Papadopoulos later agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, his Chicago-based defense lawyers Thomas Breen and Rob Stanley said in an interview that the FBI did not attempt to interrogate him right away.

Stanley said Papadopoulos arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Munich that touched down at about 7 p.m. on July 27, and the FBI intercepted him as soon as he got off the plane.

"He was arrested before he got to Customs and he was then held at the airport before being brought to a law enforcement office," Stanley recalled.

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Breen recalled being told by the FBI promptly that night that Papadopoulos was being taken into custody. "I got a phone call from counsel for the FBI around 6:30 p.m. [Chicago time], saying he was being arrested and they would arrange for him to be able to call us," the former Cook County, Illinois, prosecutor said.

Breen declined to get into specifics of his conversations with his client, but he suggested Papadopoulos was agitated by the series of events that played out on July 27.

"That night, they did everything they could to let me and Rob talk to him and calm him down and explain to him that he was going to court tomorrow," said Breen.

In those conversations, the self-described oil, gas and policy consultant with a slot on candidate Donald Trump's foreign policy team learned that he was being charged with lying to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his contacts with pro-Russia advocates and with obstruction of justice for shutting down his Facebook account one day after a follow-up interview with the FBI in February.

In a booking photo taken at the Alexandria jail in the early hours of July 28, Papadopoulos is wearing a black golf shirt. He looks serious, if a bit tired, with somewhat heavier 5 o'clock shadow than usual. He was assigned to cell 113 and was checked out to "federal authority" at 8:27 a.m., apparently to head to federal court for an arraignment.

While his late-night arrival at the jail may lead some to suspect a prolonged interrogation by the FBI, legal experts said it was highly unlikely agents would have attempted that. One reason: Papadopoulos already had Breen and Stanley on board as his lawyers by the time of the February interview, so any attempt to interview him without his lawyers could have violated legal ethics rules. If Papadopoulos was deemed to be in custody, any statements or admissions he made might have been unusable against him.

"My view is they'd have been in big trouble interviewing a guy they knew had a lawyer," said former federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg. "I don't think that would fly. ... I'd be ripshit."

With that option appearing to be off the table, the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's team appear to have decided to shock Papadopoulos about the seriousness of his predicament by making the arrest.

"Law enforcement likes to get somebody's attention as much as they can in a lawful way," Breen observed.

Lawyers said the impact was likely a jarring one.

"You get off an airplane expecting to get your bags and get home and instead there are two guys there in trench coats waiting to arrest you. That's pretty shocking," said another former federal prosecutor, Jeff Cramer. "I wouldn't underestimate the shock value of that to flip someone."

If that was the intended result, it worked.

By the next morning, Mueller's prosecution team told a federal judge that Papadopoulos had "indicated he is willing to cooperate with the government in its ongoing investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election." Prosecutors also said they hoped he would become a "proactive cooperator" — a term that can encompass efforts to obtain information from others or perhaps even to wear a wire.

After the dramatic stop at the airport, Papadopoulos was cut loose on his own recognizance the following afternoon, with prosecutors making no effort to seek bail or keep him behind bars.

"What he did, making a false statement to the FBI, is serious, but he's not a danger to anyone else," Stanley said.

In October, he became the first person to admit to a crime in connection with the Russia-focused Mueller probe.

Precisely what Papadopoulos did in recent months to aid the government remains unclear and the subject of speculation among Trump aides and former campaign officials. Prosecutors seemed pleased with the cooperation because they dropped the obstruction charge and allowed him to plead guilty to the false statement charge. A judge accepted Papadopoulos' plea at a secret hearing in October.

Breen declined to detail the cooperation with Mueller's team but told POLITICO that aspects of the case remain a mystery to him, including why prosecutors acted with such haste to arrest his client in July even before they had gone to court to seek a warrant or formal charges.

"They had probable cause. They could have arrested him at any time," the veteran defense attorney said. "Why'd they do it at that point in time? I don't know. They haven't told me their strategy."

Spokespeople for Mueller's office and the FBI declined to comment for this article, but in court papers they cited a need to keep the charges against Papadopoulos secret because of planned interviews with other Trump campaign officials and others relevant to the investigation.

Stanley and Breen said they initially planned to remain mum about the circumstances of Papadopoulos' arrest but decided to speak to POLITICO about it to avoid speculation about what happened to their client at the hands of the FBI on the night of July 27 and into the next morning.

"What they did was absolutely lawful," Breen said. "If I had a complaint, you'd know about it. I've got a short fuse."