09-01-2018, 11:43 AM
George Papadopoulos Sentencing
In a court filing yesterday, Papadopoulos's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to place Papadopoulos on probation rather than incarceration.
The filing contests the Special Counsel's assertion that Papadopoulos' falsehoods impeded Mueller's investigation.
![[Image: 171030-george-papadopoulos-national-secu...7;70;3.jpg]](https://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2018_23/2207341/171030-george-papadopoulos-national-security-meeting-donald-trump-instagram-se-1214p_d79316fb15e49671085dccb554883387.1024;768;7;70;3.jpg)
In a photo from President Trump's Twitter account posted on March 31, 2016, George Papadopoulos, third from left, sits with then-candidate Trump, Jeff Sessions, and others at what was labeled a national security meeting in Washington.
Papadopoulos’s attorneys wrote that his “motives for lying to the FBI were wrongheaded indeed but far from the sinister spin the Government suggests. Caught off-guard by an impromptu interrogation, Mr. Papadopoulos misled investigators to save his professional aspirations and preserve a perhaps misguided loyalty to his master,” an apparent reference to Trump.
Papadopoulos’s sentencing will be a milestone marking the close of the case that launched the FBI investigation of possible Trump campaign connections with Russia. Officials have said the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation in summer 2016, after an Australian diplomat reported to American counterparts that Papadopoulos had told him over drinks in May 2016 that the Russians held damning information about Clinton.
Papadopoulos, 31, pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about key details of his conversations with a London-based professor about how the Russians held dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.
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In a court filing yesterday, Papadopoulos's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to place Papadopoulos on probation rather than incarceration.
The filing contests the Special Counsel's assertion that Papadopoulos' falsehoods impeded Mueller's investigation.
In a photo from President Trump's Twitter account posted on March 31, 2016, George Papadopoulos, third from left, sits with then-candidate Trump, Jeff Sessions, and others at what was labeled a national security meeting in Washington.
Papadopoulos’s attorneys wrote that his “motives for lying to the FBI were wrongheaded indeed but far from the sinister spin the Government suggests. Caught off-guard by an impromptu interrogation, Mr. Papadopoulos misled investigators to save his professional aspirations and preserve a perhaps misguided loyalty to his master,” an apparent reference to Trump.
Papadopoulos’s sentencing will be a milestone marking the close of the case that launched the FBI investigation of possible Trump campaign connections with Russia. Officials have said the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation in summer 2016, after an Australian diplomat reported to American counterparts that Papadopoulos had told him over drinks in May 2016 that the Russians held damning information about Clinton.
Papadopoulos, 31, pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about key details of his conversations with a London-based professor about how the Russians held dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.
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