President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told Newsmax TV on Wednesday that the pardon he received from the president came as a complete surprise.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators during the Russia investigation and served two weeks in prison two years ago.
“The pardon came completely unexpected,” Papadopoulos said, explaining that he and his wife were watching television and “we were just thinking about doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and all of sudden my phone started blowing up ... from messages from people I had not heard from in years,” as well as the media, to get his reaction about the news.
“I am very grateful for the president pardoning me,” he said, adding that “it really did mean a lot to me and my family as well."
Papadopoulos also stressed that this is the first step toward justice, saying there were illegal wiretaps against him and others, as well as other illegal behavior, which has now been revealed by recently declassified documents.
He insisted that Trump has done a great service to the country by exposing the corruption of the Obama administration and their attempt not only “to undermine the Democratic process in this country but to also halt the smooth transmission of power to the Trump administration.”
Papadopoulos added that the “more transparancy the better,” stressing that all Russian probe documents should be declassified so that the American people can know all the details about what happened so that it never happens to another president.
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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