UPDATE: Papadopoulos, now that he has been sentenced, is trying to discredit the source that sparked the Russia investigation.
George Papadopoulos starting granting interviews in the run up to and in the wake of his sentencing on Friday for lying to the FBI in the special counsel's Russia probe, and his revelations could prove problematic for President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
"Do you think when the entire Mueller investigation is finished that they will demonstrate that there was collusion between the Trump campaign, Trump advisers and the Russians?" ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Papadopoulos on "This Week."
"I have no idea," the former Trump campaign adviser responded. "All I can say is my testimony might have helped move something towards that."
Papadopoulos reiterated the information his defense team wrote in its sentencing memo that indicted President Trump did not dismiss and Attorney General Jeff Sessions was supportive of Papadopoulos' efforts to establish a meeting for the candidate with Vladimir Putin – an assertion that conflicts with what Sessions said under oath.
"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."
(...)
The "attorney general says he pushed back," Stephanopoulos said to Papadopoulos. "Is he telling the truth?" Papadopoulos said, "All I can say is this is a meeting from about two years ago. My recollection differs from Jeff Sessions.
He also said that there were mixed reactions to the summit idea among Trump’s advisers at that March 2016 meeting, but that many in the campaign were aware of his efforts, including Corey Lewandowski, the then-campaign manager, Sam Clovis, a senior aide, and Trump himself.
(...)
Papadopoulos is believed to be the first Trump campaign adviser told of hacked emails tied to Clinton – information shared in April 2016, well before any pilfered material was published.
FBI agents interviewed Papadopoulos in January 2017, and he did not tell the truth.
Speaking for the special counsel's office, Andrew Goldstein said during Friday’s sentencing hearing that Papadopoulos "chose to lie again and again to advance his personal interests." His lies were "purposeful, calculated and caused harm to the investigation,” he said.
He made “at best begrudging efforts to cooperate,” the prosecutor argued.
(...)
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss called the young, former campaign aide’s lies a “serious offense." Papadopoulos, Moss said, had lied to “place his own personal ambitions above the interests of the United States.”
“Those are not noble reasons to tell a lie," the judge said. "This was not a noble lie.”
At the same time, he said he recognized that Papadopoulos had “genuine remorse” for “letting himself get caught up.”
After ordering him to spend two weeks in prison, Moss concluded by saying: “Just the process of having to go to prison will leave a strong impression on him for the rest of his life.”
CNN's Jake Tapper spoke with Papadopoulos at some point between his guilty plea and his sentencing, and that interview aired Friday night.
The young political operative maintains that he never alerted the Trump campaign about the Russian dirt. But when pressed, Papadopoulos refused to completely shut the door on the possibility that the information made its way to other people on the campaign.
"As far as I remember, I absolutely did not share this information with anyone on the campaign," Papadopoulos said, adding, "I might have, but I have no recollection of doing so. I can't guarantee. All I can say is, my memory is telling me that I never shared it with anyone on the campaign."
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) told CNN he his doubts about Papadopoulos' honesty.
"This guy Papadopoulos, I've never met him, but he clearly is aspiring to be a player," Warner said. "And my understanding is he can't remember whether he turned that information over to other senior people in the Trump campaign. That's not very believable."
(...)
"It just stretches, I think, most people's credibility that if Papadopoulos had this knowledge and he wanted to try to further ingratiate himself with the campaign, that he wouldn't have shared that with somebody on the campaign," Warner said.
Papadopoulos also answered questions from The New York Times last week. The full podcast, An Interview With George Papadopoulos, now is online. An excerpt:
PAPADOPOULOS: My biggest regret, actually, is not telling the U.S. intelligence community what [Joseph] Mifsud told me actually the minute after I left that meeting in London with him. The stupidest thing I did was actually gossiping about it with foreign diplomats. Allegedly, the Australian and for sure with the Greek. And not telling the U.S. intelligence community until I was interviewed.
MAZZETTI: Because that was a — you now say that is something that you should have notified the F.B.I. or somebody about?
PAPADOPOULOS: It is. It is. Definitely.
Papadopoulos' new wife, Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, joined her husband on his media tour, telling ABC News that U.S. officials questioned her too.
“I come from a political background myself. I used to work as a diplomat at the European Parliament for a few years and this could be a red flag because many officials at European Union actually -- it’s a cover-up for spy jobs.”
She added that she understands their concern about her role as it relates to her husband, but has denied that she has any ties to Russia.
“Of course this connection was highly suspicious. I respect the, I always said I respect Mueller’s interest in my profile because clearly it’s quite alarming, the fact that I marry George Papadopoulos in the middle of this storm,” Mangiante Papadopoulos said.
The couple married in March of this year. They met through Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious Maltese professor who is believed to be an operative for the Russian government and who attempted during the campaign to introduce George Papadopoulos to people purportedly connected to Russia.
Stephanopoulos asked the couple about a Democratic National Committee lawsuit suggesting that Mifsud might be dead. The DNC -- which is suing Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks for interfering in the 2016 election -- said in a court filing Friday that it believes all the defendants in the case have been served with the complaint, “with the exception of Mifsud (who is missing and may be deceased),” Bloomberg reported.
"Do you know anything about that?" Stephanopoulos asked. "As far as you know, he’s missing and it’s possible?"
"It’s possible, yes," Mangiante Papadopoulos said.
Her husband said, "I have no idea, George. But it’s possible."
(...)
While Papadopoulos still must surrender himself and serve the two-week prison stint, he is already looking beyond it and planning a move to California to begin his new life supporting his wife’s fledgling acting career. But he may not be entirely finished with the investigations that led him to prison.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee conducting its own investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign, said Friday he believes Papadopoulos could be called to testify.
“As an influential foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, Mr. Papadopoulos was informed that Russia had ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton in the form of ‘thousands of emails’ at a critical time during the campaign,” Warner said. “I still have significant questions about how high that information went, and I know the Senate Intelligence Committee would like to hear directly from Mr. Papadopoulos."
Papadopoulos: My testimony could help demonstrate collusion between Trump campaign and Russia (The Hill)
Trump campaign members were 'fully aware' of efforts to set Putin meeting: Papadopoulos (ABC News)
Papadopoulos breaks silence, 'can't guarantee' he didn't tell Trump campaign about Russian dirt (CNN)
Excerpts From the New York Times Interview With George Papadopoulos (NYT)
Papadopoulos's wife acknowledges that special counsel team suspected her of being a Russian spy (ABC News)
An Interview With George Papadopoulos (The Daily)