Don: Oh, I hardly knew the guy

Papadopoulos then allegedly tried to set up a meeting between Trump and the Russian operative throughout the campaign.

He spent the summer during the campaign season communicating with a contact at the Foreign Ministry, the charging document says, and setting up an off-therecord meeting between the contact and the Trump campaign.

He emailed the campaign about making the unofficial trip in June 2016. Papadopoulos didn’t hear back from the campaign supervisor until August, when the person said, “I would encourage you” and other foreign policy advisers to “make the trip . . . if it is feasible.”

Papadopoulos, however, never ventured to Russia for the meeting, court documents claim.

The request for a meeting was eventually shot down by a campaign official who was not identified in the court filing — but was ID’d by The Washington Post as thencampaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was arraigned Monday on money laundering charges brought by Mueller’s office.

Papadopoulos was arrested in July when he arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

According to his guilty plea, he lied repeatedly when asked about his Russia contacts, telling FBI agents he only had innocuous conversations with Russians before joining the campaign. He also deleted a Facebook account that he used to send private messages to his Russian contacts and got a new cell number. His guilty plea was unsealed Monday, but his sentencing hearing will be scheduled later. He has also been forced to turn over his passport, according to reports.

The filing says he’d initially told investigators the professor was “a nothing” and “just a guy talk(ing) up connections or something,” and that they’d met long before he was named as Trump policy adviser.

EXCERPTS OF COURT DOCUMENTS RELATED TO FORMER TRUMP ADVISER GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS’ GUILTY PLEA:

Defendant Papadopoulos claimed that his interactions with an overseas professor, who defendant Papadopoulos understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials, occurred before defendant Papadopoulos became a foreign policy adviser to the campaign. In truth and in fact, however, defendant Papadopoulos learned he would be an adviser to the campaign in early March, and met the professor on or about March 14, 2016; the professor only took interest in defendant Papadopoulos because of his status with the campaign. On or about March 31, 2016, defendant Papadopoulos attended a “national security meeting” in Washington, D.C., with then-candidate Trump and other foreign policy advisers for the campaign. When defendant Papadopoulos introduced himself to the group, he stated, in sum and substance, that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin (photo below). On or about April 26, 2016, defendant Papadopoulos met the professor for breakfast at a London hotel. During this meeting, the professor told defendant Papadopoulos that he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian government officials. The professor told defendant Papadopoulos that on that trip he (the professor) learned that the Russians had obtained “dirt” on then-candidate Clinton. The professor told defendant Papadopoulos, as defendant Papadopoulos later described to the FBI, that “They [the Russians] have dirt on her"; “the Russians had emails of Clinton”; “they have thousands of emails.

Asked by the feds why the Russians would be offering him info about Clinton if he wasn’t involved with Trump, he said it was a “very strange coincidence.”

Another ex-Trump campaign aide, Carter Page, said he’s “probably” in Papadopoulos’ Russia emails, too.

“It may have come up from time to time, again, you know, there’s nothing major,” Page shrugged to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. Papadopoulos’ legal team expressed an interest in telling its side of the story when the time is right.

“We will have the opportunity to comment on George’s involvement when called upon by the court at a later date,” his lawyer said in a statement.

“We look forward to presenting all the facts that led to the events that resulted in this charge.” Papadopoulos previously worked on Ben Carson’s presidential run before joining the Trump campaign and has worked in energy-related policy.

His LinkedIn page quotes Trump as saying, “George is an oil and gas consultant; excellent guy.”

Sanders said Papadopoulos reached out to campaign officials several times about a meeting, which they continually pushed off.

“Any actions that he took would be on his own,” she said.

Sanders didn’t say if Trump — who boasts that he has a tremendous memory — recalled what Papadopoulos said at last year’s meeting, when he pitched a sitdown with Putin.

The announcement could be a sign of more things to come, according to former prosecutors.

“Special Counsel Mueller already has one criminal conviction. And this plea portends more charges to come,” former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump earlier this year, tweeted Monday.