Simona Mangiante, George Papadopoulos' wife, appeared on Fox News Monday night and said she hopes President Trump will pardon her husband.
Her request stands in stark contrast with her public remarks just six months ago when she told news outlets that what her then-fiancée knew could bring down the president.
"I used to compare him to John Dean, (but) I never meant to make this comparison in the sense that it would lead to the president's impeachment," she said.
Asked if she believed her husband would go to prison, she answered, "I trust and hope and I ask President Trump to pardon him — I hope he will."
Mangiante's recent comments raise questions about the nature and extent of her husband's cooperation with the Mueller probe.
Mangiante told The Washington Post in January her husband played a larger role in the Trump campaign than the president and his allies allege, and in sharing what he knows, Papadopoulos would end up on the right side of history.
Without offering specifics, Mangiante said there is much more that has not yet been told publicly about Papadopoulos' 10 months as an informal national security adviser to Trump and his interactions with a London-based professor who told Papadopoulos, according to court filings, that the Russians had "dirt" on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
"There's a lot to come," she said. "He was the first one to break a hole on all of this."
She said Papadopoulos was not a "coffee boy," as he was once tagged by former Trump adviser Michael Caputo, a nickname she found especially galling. "I know what it means as a young person to do all the efforts you do to build your career and be dismissed as a coffee boy," she said.
Papadopoulos was secretly arrested in July 2017, and has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in a January 2017 interview.
He is now awaiting sentencing, and the extent and nature of his cooperation with Mueller's office remains a secret.
Wife of Mueller witness Papadopoulos asks Trump to pardon him (NBC News)