Papadopoulos: Russia collusion ‘hoax’ was ‘basically fabricated’ by Western intelligence

No longer bound by a gag order, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has gone public about his Mueller probe conviction, describing the Russia collusion narrative as a ‘hoax’ manufactured by intelligence agencies.

Papadopoulos, who served 12 days in prison last fall for lying to investigators, has launched a media blitz to clarify “misinformation” about his guilty plea following the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Papadopoulos explained that the FBI had tried to pressure him to “admit” that he had told someone at the Trump campaign about his conversations with a shadowy professor, Joseph Mifsud. Painted as a Russian agent by the FBI, Mifsud told Papadopoulos during a London meeting that Russia had possession of Hillary Clinton’s emails. The professor went missing in September 2018.

“Because if I had told anyone in the campaign, it would have been a conspiracy, but it would have been based on Western intelligence basically fabricating the entire thing,” he said.

“As I am talking to Mueller’s people and they are trying to get me to say something that I know is not true, I just couldn’t. I had to stick to the facts, the truth.”

The 31-year-old was framed as the cornerstone of the Trump campaign’s alleged collaboration with the Kremlin, after he supposedly told Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, that Russia had Clinton's emails.

But Papadopoulos told ‘Fox & Friends’ that he never discussed the issue with Downer.

“I actually was the one who reported Downer to both the FBI and Bob Mueller because of his very bizarre, strange behavior during my meeting with him. He was pulling his phone out, he was recording me. It was very bizarre,” he said.

Ultimately, Mueller’s probe into alleged Russia collusion was a “hoax,” Papadopoulos said, but he wasn’t allowed to comment on it until after he was sentenced.

Papadopoulos is currently promoting a book about his experience, “Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump.”

Mueller’s nearly two-year probe, which ended on Friday, concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Curiously, investigators charged Papadopoulos with “lying in order to conceal his contacts with Russians and Russian intermediaries” – an allegation which the former Trump official is now disputing.

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