Former Trump campaign aide pleads guilty to lying to FBI agents

A foreign policy adviser for President Trump’s campaign pleaded guilty to making “false statements” during an interview with FBI agents about a Russia-connected “overseas professor” who offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, according to court papers.

George Papadopoulos acknowledged lying about his contacts with Russian government officials in court documents unsealed on Monday and admitted he emailed a high-ranking Trump campaign official in May 2016 with the subject line: “Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump.”

“Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite sometime and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” the email said, according to the papers dated Oct. 5.

He told the agents during an interview on Jan. 27 that he had a conversation with a London-based professor about a week after he began working on the campaign in late March 2016, believing building a relationship with him could raise his standing among the other Trump advisers.

The professor, who was not identified in the court papers, was accompanied at the meeting with a Russian woman he introduced to Papadopoulos as a “niece” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He later learned the woman was not a Putin relative.

Papadopoulos then emailed an unidentified “campaign supervisor” that he had met his “good friend” and said the get together’s focus was to “arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump.”

The campaign supervisor responded: “Great work.”

Later that month, Papadopoulos went to a “national security meeting” in Washington, DC, attended by Trump and other campaign adviser and introduced himself as somebody who could work out a meeting between Trump and Putin.

He continued to talk with Putin’s “niece” and the professor and they continued to assure him they were sending his requests for a meeting to the highest Russian officials.

“I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. … As mentioned we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” the woman wrote Papadopoulos, the court papers say.

The professor also introduced him via email to an official in the Russian Foreign Ministry who ended up talking with Papadopoulos over Skype about laying “the groundwork” for a meeting between Trump campaign associates and Kremlin officials.

At the end of April, the professor told Papadopoulos he had just returned from Moscow and learned about the Clinton emails.

“They have dirt on her,” he said. “The Russians had emails of Clinton”; “They have thousands of emails,” the court papers say.

The professor and the foreign ministry official continued to tease a meeting with Trump campaign officials and Papadopoulos continued messaging his supervisors.

At one point, a “high-ranking campaign official” referred him to the “campaign supervisor” who is “running point.”

Papadopoulos then sent that person an email with the subject line: “Re: Messages from Russia.”

Eventually the foreign ministry told him they would be willing to meet with Trump or a campaign official if they could make it to Russia.

In August, the “campaign supervisor” wrote back, “I would encourage you” and another foreign policy adviser to “make the trip if it is feasible.”

No trip ever took place.

The court papers on Papadopoulos were unsealed after Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, and his former business associate, Rick Gates, surrendered to federal authorities to face conspiracy and money laundering charges as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.