Ex-Trump campaign aide Papadopoulos jailed for 14 days, slapped with $9,500 fine in Mueller probe
George Papadopoulos, a former campaign aide of President Donald Trump, has been sentenced to two weeks in prison, a $9,500 fine and 200 hours of community service for lying to the FBI in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
On top of 14 days in jail, Papadopoulos will have a year of supervised release. Earlier, he pleaded guilty to making false statements to the investigators about his communications with 'Russians'.
While the prosecution demanded up to six months behind bars for ex-Trump campaign aide, judge Randolph D. Moss found no evidence that 31-year-old Papadopoulos actually worked with Russia to meddle in the US election or had “any desire to aid Russia in any way.”
According to the US authorities, Trump’s campaign aide made “material false statements” and omitted the facts regarding the extent, timing, and nature of his communications with an “overseas professor” said to have “substantial connections” to Russian government officials; a female Russian national; and a man who “told defendant Papadopoulos he had connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Prosecutors for Special Counsel Robert Mueller argued that Papadopoulos’ lies hindered the investigation and “undermined [their] ability to challenge the professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States.” The mysterious ‘professor’ was identified as the London-based Maltese academic, Joseph Mifsud.
Papadopoulos’ lawyer, meanwhile, insisted that the claim that his lies impeded the probe was “speculative and contrary to the evidence,” and even tried to shift the blame on none other than Donald Trump himself. “The president of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could,” lawyer Thomas Breen told the judge, according to Reuters. The Trump’s former aide himself admitted committing a “dreadful mistake” and expressed his hope he could get a “second chance to redeem himself.”
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