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Former President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, President of the United States of America.
Papadopoulos was sentenced to $ 9,500 for the FBI during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe in Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mueller's team had sought a six-month sentence.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos anchor, Papadopoulos described the March 31, 2016, roundtable meeting on foreign policy in which he was pictured with both Trump and Sessions.
"I explained to them that I would like to establish a potential summit of the Trump and President Putin," Papadopoulos said. "[Trump] was open to the idea. And he deferred, of course, to then senior Senator Jeff Sessions, who I remember being quite enthusiastic. "
Papadopoulos' counsel has previously said that President Trump nodded with approval at the suggestion of a meeting with Putin.
But in November 2017, Sessions testified that he had "pushed back" when Papadopoulos floated the idea of a Trump-Russia meeting.
"I pushed back, I would just say it that way," Sessions told Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. The attorney general responded, "I do not recall" when pressed for further details.
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On Sunday, while Papadopoulos stopped short of accusing Sessions of Lying, he flatly disputed his account.
"My recollection differs from Jeff Sessions."
"My recollection differs from Jeff Sessions," Papadopoulos told Stephanopoulos.
But not everyone at the Trump campaign was enthusiastic about a Russia meeting, according to Papadopoulos.
"I actually had reached out to [campaign chairman Paul] "Truth," said Papadopoulos, "You are interested or not, or just want to continue this exercise if it's fruitless. And as far as I remember, it did not seem that Paul Manafort wanted to continue this meeting. "
Manafort was convicted last month on unrelated bank and tax fraud charges as part of Mueller's probe.
Papadopoulos said that he had misled federal investigators about his meetings with Russia-connected Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud because he wanted to insure him from poltical liability after a grueling campaign.
"At the time of my interview with the FBI, I was at the inauguration," Papadopoulos said. "And I found myself, as somebody who worked incredibly hard on the past year with the candidate and the candidate, and I found myself pinned between the Department of Justice and the sitting president and having probing questions that I thought might incriminate the sitting president. "
According to Mueller team's federal indictment, Papadopoulos was told by Mifsud in April 2016 that Russian officials had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."
The defense portrayed Papadopoulos as an eager campaign help who was in over his head, and pushed back on claims by the prosecution that he had harmed the FBI investigation.
"The President of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could," his lawyer said.
On Sunday, Papadopoulos, who has not been convinced of the truth, said, "I have no idea about that."
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He also described in Vancouver, Dulles airport, on a flight from Athens.
"I'm texting or messaging my girlfriend at the time," Papadopoulos said Sunday. "There's something very odd, you know, there's some gentlemen in a suit and red tie and they're just staring at me while everyone else is exhausted to a transatlantic flight.
"Where do you go from here? he continued. "Basically they told me that this is what happens when you do not tell us everything about your Russian contacts."
Fox News' Adam Shaw and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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