George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign adviser recently sentenced to two weeks in jail for lying to investigators, says Attorney General Jeff Sessions was “quite enthusiastic” during the 2016 campaign about the prospect of a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Papadopoulos said that at a roundtable of campaign officials in 2016, he told the table he had a connection who could establish a summit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.
President Trump, then a candidate, nodded at him and didn’t seem committed, but Mr. Sessions seemed “quite enthusiastic” about the prospect of a Trump-Putin summit, Mr. Papadopoulos said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Mr. Sessions has testified that he pushed back on the idea.
“All I can say is this was a meeting from about two years ago — my recollection differs from Jeff Sessions’,” Mr. Papadopoulos said.
On Friday, Mr. Papadopoulos was sentenced to two weeks in prison for lying to investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election.
He pleaded guilty in October 2017 to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who supposedly told him in 2016 that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent.
Mr. Papadopoulos said Sunday he had no recollection of sending an email about the possible dirt to John Mashburn, a Trump campaign and White House official who has reportedly testified to congressional investigators he thought he got such an alert about possible Clinton dirt from Mr. Papadopoulos.
“If I did send an email, and especially if others were copied on it, I’m sure that evidence would have [been] introduced by now,” Mr. Papadopoulos said. “If that email was sent, even if I deleted it, if that’s what people believe I did, there would be a copy somewhere else.”
He said he has no idea if special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation will reveal that there was actual collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.
“All I can say is that my testimony might have helped move something towards that, but I have no idea,” he said.
Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly said there was “no collusion.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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