George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign advisor who sparked the investigation into Russia, talks with reporters after his first appearance before congressional investigators, at Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC October 25, 2018.(Photo: Mary Clare Jalonick, AP)

Special advocate, Robert Mueller, on Wednesday urged a judge to dismiss a request from a former Trump campaign advisor to delay the start of his jail term, which is expected to begin Monday.

Last year, George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia while he was working for the Trump campaign in 2016. In September, he was sentenced to two weeks in prison, one year of probation, 200 hours of community service and a fine of $ 9,500. His sentence was to begin on November 26th.

Papdopoulos is Trump's first former assistant to have been sentenced in Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Papadopoulos' lawyers filed a petition on Friday asking a judge to allow their client to stay out of jail until a decision is made in another case, which challenges constitutionality. Mueller's appointment as a special advocate. They said that Papadopoulos "serving a sentence for a zero conviction, would be unfair".

Some of the arguments in the case supporting Mueller's appointment were unconstitutional echoing those who challenged the selection of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker by President Donald Trump. They say that the process of giving Mueller his authority violated the appointment clause of the Constitution on appointments and that his powers made him a "senior officer" demanding confirmation from the Senate.

The Mueller team said that Papadopoulos did not have a pending appeal and that the deadline for filing one had expired on September 25th. They also explained that the views of his lawyers regarding the pending appointment of prosecutor Mueller had not been retained, as a court had rendered an opinion on this in the case. August. They stated that his "new argument had been made available to him for a long time".

Since "he pleaded guilty, Papadopoulos said on television and on social media that he was" framed "and that he" should never have pleaded guilty. " Mueller's team used these arguments against him, claiming that it showed that his most recent requests were only for "delaying".

Papadopoulos served as a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Although the president tried to reduce Papadopoulos' role, he introduced him as a member of his foreign policy team at a meeting with the Washington Post editorial board in March 2016.

Mueller's team said that Papadopoulos "had lied to the FBI regarding his interactions with a foreign professor that he believed had significant links with the Russian government, as well as a Russian woman."

Papadopoulos told the FBI that his meetings with them were "inconsequential" and had taken place before he started working on the campaign.

"In fact, the defendant knew that the professor was only interested in him after learning that the defendant was affiliated with the Trump campaign.At the end of April 2016, after his return from a trip to Moscow. , the professor told the defendant that Russia had a "dirt" on Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails" ", says the court record.

Contributor: Brad Heath

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