Trump campaign members were 'fully aware' of efforts to set Putin meeting: Papadopoulos

By MATTHEW MOSK KAITLYN FOLMER Sep 9, 2018, 11:02 AM ET

George Papadopoulos, the one-time foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump who became swept up in the special counsel investigation, says members of the Trump campaign team were “fully aware” and in many cases supportive of his efforts to broker a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I actively sought to leverage my contacts with the professor to host this meeting,” Papadopoulos told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on "This Week" Sunday. "The campaign was fully aware what I was doing."

Papadopoulos’s comments were his first in public since being sentenced Friday to 14 days incarceration, one year of supervised release, 200 hours of community service and a $9,500 fine. He pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to FBI agents about his interactions with a Russian national and a Maltese professor believed to be an operative for the Russian government.

Stephanopoulos asked if Papadopoulos thinks that “when the entire Mueller investigation is finished that they will demonstrate that there was collusion between the Trump campaign, between Trump advisers and the Russians?”

Papadopoulos, who had four sessions with Mueller’s team, responded, “I have no idea. All I can say is that my testimony might have helped move something towards that, but I have no idea.”

He said that during the campaign he floated the idea of a summit between then-candidate Trump and Putin at a campaign security team meeting on March 31, 2016.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-papadopoulos-exclusive-interview-week/story?id=57694015

Quote:
"I actively sought to leverage my contacts with the professor to host this meeting,” Papadopoulos told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on "This Week" Sunday. "The campaign was fully aware what I was doing."