Trump’s former aide jailed for lying to Russia investigation
A former adviser to US President Donald Trump whose contacts with Russians started the investigation into collusion with Moscow was jailed on Friday for lying to the FBI.
US District Judge Randolph Moss sentenced foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos to 14 days in prison.
Mr Moss acknowledged Papadopoulos’s guilty plea and his remorse, but said that he “lied in an investigation that was important to national security”.
Papadopoulos was the second man sent to prison in the 16-month Russian collusion investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Two weeks earlier, two former top aides to Mr Trump were convicted of felony crimes in cases that have emerged from the investigation.
So far, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and former national security adviser Michael Flynn have all pleaded or been found guilty.
The president ridiculed Papadopoulos’s sentence, calling it a trivial accomplishment for an investigation that has cost millions since it began last year.
Mr Trump ignored the 35 indictments, five guilty pleas and one trial conviction Mr Mueller has achieved so far.
Papadopoulos, 31, was an inexperienced oil analyst in London when he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 as one of a few members of the Republican candidate’s national security advisory board.
When told the campaign’s priority was to improve relations with Russia, within weeks he made contact with a mysterious professor, Joseph Mifsud, who said he had links to the Kremlin.
At a meeting in March 2016, Papadopoulos told Mr Trump and then senator, now Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he had connections in London who could set up a meeting between the candidate and Russian President Vladimir Putin before the November election.
In late April he also told them that Mr Mifsud said the Russians had information that could harm Mrs Clinton in thousands of emails.
Weeks later, emails stolen from Mrs Clinton were leaked online by what US intelligence chiefs now say were Russian intelligence officers. Papadopoulos says he had nothing to do with the leak.
After being tipped off by an Australian diplomat that Papadopoulos had spoken about the Russians having information on Mrs Clinton, the FBI began to investigate whether people in Mr Trump’s campaign were colluding with Russia.
Papadopoulos admitted that he lied to FBI investigators when they interviewed him on January 27 last year.
His sentencing was the latest blow to the president after investigative reporter Bob Woodward released extracts from his new book, Fear: Trump in the White House.
Then an opinion piece by an anonymous senior US government official appeared in The
New York Times, describing Mr Trump as adrift from reality and unstable.
The president hit back at the unknown author saying, “I would say Jeff [Sessions] should be investigating who the author of that piece was because I really believe it’s national security”. He said it was a disgrace that the opinion piece was published.