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| Donald Trump tweets dismiss George Papadopoulos as 'low level volunteer' | Donald Trump tweets dismiss George Papadopoulos as 'low level volunteer' |
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| Donald Trump has broken his silence over the former foreign policy aide who tried to secure a meeting for him with Vladimir Putin during the election campaign and has admitted lying to federal investigators about his work. | |
| Trump fired off a series of tweets on Tuesday morning in which he publicly addressed for the first time the conviction of ex-adviser George Papadopoulos, which was revealed on Monday shortly after Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was charged with a catalogue of serious federal crimes. | |
| “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar,” Trump posted on Twitter shortly after 8am local time on Tuesday, adding: “Check the DEMS!” | “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar,” Trump posted on Twitter shortly after 8am local time on Tuesday, adding: “Check the DEMS!” |
| It emerged on Monday that Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to federal agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. | |
| Papadopoulos’s plea was unsealed on the same day Manafort and a business associate, Rick Gates, were charged with money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and failing to register as agents of foreign interests. | |
| Papadopoulos is the first person to face criminal charges that cite interactions between Trump campaign associates and people claiming to be Russian intermediaries during the 2016 presidential campaign. | Papadopoulos is the first person to face criminal charges that cite interactions between Trump campaign associates and people claiming to be Russian intermediaries during the 2016 presidential campaign. |
| Despite Trump’s claim that “few people knew” Papadopoulos, the future president himself referred to him as an “excellent guy” in an interview with the Washington Post in March 2016 about his new foreign policy team. | |
| Later that month the future president posted a picture on Instagram captioned “meeting with my national security team” in which Papadopoulos can be seen four seats to his right. | |
| In addition, the court documents released by Mueller’s team on Monday show that unnamed campaign officials told Papadopoulos “great work” when he said he was trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin and encouraged him to make a trip to meet Russian officials in lieu of Trump himself. | In addition, the court documents released by Mueller’s team on Monday show that unnamed campaign officials told Papadopoulos “great work” when he said he was trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin and encouraged him to make a trip to meet Russian officials in lieu of Trump himself. |
| The meetings never happened and, following the dramatic events in Washington on Monday, the president’s team insisted that Papadopoulos, 30, played a limited role in the campaign and had no access to Trump. | The meetings never happened and, following the dramatic events in Washington on Monday, the president’s team insisted that Papadopoulos, 30, played a limited role in the campaign and had no access to Trump. |
| Trump sent out heated tweets repeatedly on Sunday, calling Mueller’s investigation a witch-hunt and asserting that there was no collusion between his election campaign and the Russian authorities and calling for greater scrutiny of claims of wrongdoing by his election rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. | Trump sent out heated tweets repeatedly on Sunday, calling Mueller’s investigation a witch-hunt and asserting that there was no collusion between his election campaign and the Russian authorities and calling for greater scrutiny of claims of wrongdoing by his election rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. |
| Then on Monday, Manafort turned himself in and the Papadopoulos conviction was unsealed. | Then on Monday, Manafort turned himself in and the Papadopoulos conviction was unsealed. |
| Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning: “The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts [sic] lawyer said, there was ‘no collusion’ and events mentioned took place long before he ... came to the campaign.” | |
| He then sought to distance himself from Papadopoulos and further tweeted that he hoped people would focus instead on his plans for tax cuts and “Democrat corruption”. | He then sought to distance himself from Papadopoulos and further tweeted that he hoped people would focus instead on his plans for tax cuts and “Democrat corruption”. |
| Meanwhile, Russian officials brushed off the allegations in broad terms without going into specifics. Senator Alexei Pushkov wrote on Twitter: “Neither Trump, nor his campaign or Russian officials are mentioned. A ‘professor with ties to the Kremlin’? Ridiculous.” | |
| Papadopoulos’s plea deal states that he was told in April 2016 by an unnamed “professor” – identified by the Washington Post as Joseph Mifsud – that Russia had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”. | |
| The foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the allegations of a Russian link “hysteria”, while the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, wrote on Facebook that she was “enjoying following the American circus” around the allegations. | |
| However, Lavrov refused to answer a specific question on whether the Russian foreign ministry was aware of Papadopoulos’s approach. |