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George Papadopoulos, Trump's former campaign counselor recently sentenced to two weeks in prison for lying to investigators, said Sunday that he was not able to recall having alerted Trump's campaign about the potential dirt of Hillary Clinton.
But Papadopoulos also said his cooperation with Special Adviser Robert Mueller's investigation could help Mueller prove that there was in fact a collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians – something that Trump has times and energetically denied.
Papadopoulos was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in October 2017 to lies to federal investigators over his contacts with Joseph Mifsud, a professor who allegedly told him in 2016 that Russia had damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic opponent of M Trump.
Papadopoulos said on Sunday that he had no recollection of sending an email about the possible filth to John Mashburn, a Trump campaign and a White House official who reportedly told Papadopoulos that he had received such a alert.
"If I sent an e-mail, especially if others had been copied on it, I'm sure [been] Said Papadopoulos on ABC's "This Week." "If this email was sent, even if I deleted it, if that was what people thought I had done, there would be a copy somewhere else. ".
He has no idea that Mr. Mueller's investigation will reveal a real collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. "All I can say is that my testimony could have helped move things forward, but I have no idea," he said.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Senate's top Senate Democrat, said it was hard to believe that Papadopoulos would not have warned Mifsud that the professor's contacts had Clinton-related filth. that the Russians had.
"It's an ambitious man who wants to be a Trump campaigner," Warner said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I think the credibility of most people, if Papadopoulos wanted to try to fit better into the campaign, he would not have shared that with anyone in the campaign."
Papadopoulos also said Attorney General Jeff Sessions had seemed "very enthusiastic" at some point in the campaign about the prospect of a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Papadopoulos said that at a roundtable of campaign leaders in 2016, he said at the table that he had a connection that could establish a summit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.
The Trump candidate then nodded to him and did not seem engaged, but Mr. Sessions seemed "very excited" about the prospect of a Trump-Putin summit, Papadopoulos said Sunday. .
Mr. Sessions testified that he rebuffed the idea. "All I can say is that my memories differ from hers at this point," Papadopoulos said.
Mr. Warner said he hoped Mr. Mueller's team would look into these differences.
"In recent weeks, the president's campaign director pleaded guilty, President Michael Cohen's personal attorney agreed to work with Mueller and to plead guilty as well," he told CBS. "The president's chief financial officer now enjoys some immunity. So, I think we'll start getting a lot of those answers. And I think that's why the Mueller Inquiry and, in fact, our inquiry into intelligence in the Senate must take its course. "
Papadopoulos's lawyers had sought to avoid prison, asking for probation instead. Federal prosecutors in the special council office have asked Judge Randolph Moss for up to six months in prison.
In court records, Mueller's team claimed that Papadopoulos' lies had caused damage to the Russian government's collusion investigation.
They said his sentence should reflect the fact that "lying to federal investigators has real consequences, especially when the accused has lied to investigators on critical facts in an investigation of national significance".
During his interview with the FBI in January 2017, Mr. Papadopoulos misled investigators about Russia's influence on Mrs. Clinton. He said at least a dozen times that he had known about it before joining the campaign, according to court documents.
Papadopoulos' lawyers said in the court documents that their client was "ashamed and remorseful", claiming that his lies did not detract from the investigation in Russia.
Defense lawyers in their files described Mr. Papadopoulos as a naïve and enthusiastic campaign assistant who tried to impress Trump's campaign by holding a meeting with campaign leaders and Russia to discuss what the Russia would have against Mrs. Clinton.
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