House to hear new testimony on Russia probe
Closed-door discussions to include Rosenstein, Papadopoulos
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s allies are hoping that testimony this week before the House of Representatives will provide new ammunition against the FBI and the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
On Wednesday, leaders of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform Committees are scheduled to hear closed-door testimony from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. On Thursday, committee members will interview George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to Trump’s campaign who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, for the first time.
For more than a year, congressional panels investigating Russian interference have wanted to speak with Papadopoulos about his outreach to two Russian nationals during the campaign, as well as his interactions with a London-based professor, Joseph Mifsud, who told him in April 2016 that the Russians had dirt on then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of her emails.
The House Judiciary and Oversight Committees launched a joint investigation in October 2017, about a week before Papadopoulos pleaded guilty.
He was cooperating with the special counsel until last month, when he was sentenced to 14 days in jail. After that, he volunteered to be interviewed by Congress.
Papadopoulos has emerged as an early key figure in the Russia investigation. FBI officials have told Congress that they first opened a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign and Russia after an Australian diplomat reported in late July 2016 that Papadopoulos had described a conversation with Mifsud about Clinton’s emails.
But Republicans have been skeptical. Papadopoulos has been stoking their theories in recent interviews and Twitter comments, in which he has alleged that he was set up by Western intelligence agencies.
In a letter to congressional committees sent Monday, a lawyer for Papadopoulos told the committee he was prepared to discuss his interactions with nine individuals.
They include Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer and Stephen Halper, a Cambridge professor who was an FBI source, and interacted with Papadopoulos and two other Trump aides.
Papadopoulos has suggested on Twitter that he thinks each may have been working with British or other Western intelligence services to set up the Trump campaign.