The former Trump advisor whose remarks in a London pub sparked the US inquiry into possible collusion with Russia has been sentenced to 14 days in jail.
George Papadopoulos, 31, told the court in Washington DC he was a “patriotic American” who made a mistake by lying.
He pleaded guilty last October to lying to the FBI about the timing of meetings with alleged go-betweens for Moscow.
He was the first ex-Trump aide arrested in the probe into an alleged Kremlin plot to sway the 2016 US vote.
In Friday’s sentencing, Papadopoulos was also handed 12 months of supervised release, 200 hours of community service, and a fine of $9,500 (Ā£7,350).
He was a London-based petroleum analyst before he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 as a volunteer foreign policy adviser.
Papadopoulos soon made contact with a mysterious Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud, who told him the Russians had “dirt” on Mr Trump’s Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”.
The Chicago native told Donald Trump, then a Republican presidential candidate, and other members of the campaign’s national security team that he could set up a Trump-Putin meeting ahead of the November election.
A pre-sentencing statement last week read: “While some in the room rebuffed George’s offer, Mr Trump nodded with approval and deferred to Mr Sessions, who appeared to like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into it.”
Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat during a drinking session in a London pub about his meetings with Professor Mifsud. The envoy alerted US investigators in mid-2016.
Be the first to comment