George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, maintained Tuesday that he was swept up in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian collusion and that he knew the "entire thing was a hoax" from day one, but he couldn't talk about it because of a gag order.
"My story is in so much misinformation about actually what my real case was about," Papadopoulos, who was sentenced last year to 14 days in jail after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "It was about a professor I met in London who the FBI told the world was a Russian agent. This guy is no Russian agent."
Papadopoulos is the author of "Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump," a book released on Tuesday that he says tells the entire story behind his arrest.
The Department of Justice had claimed Papadopoulos in 2016 got drunk in a London bar and told an Australian that Russians had emails stolen from Hillary Clinton. He agreed to plead guilty in 2017 of making false statements to the FBI, leading to the 14-day jail sentence and served one day.
"That's a complete lie," he said Tuesday about the claims over his meeting with the Australian, former ambassador Alexander Downer. "I actually reported Alexander Downer to both the FBI and Bob Mueller because of his very bizarre, strange behavior during my meeting with him."
Papadopoulos added that the FBI and Mueller wanted to force him to admit his connections, "even though it never happened."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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