WASHINGTON – Greek-American George Papadopoulos, an energy consultant who was an adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, has emerged as a figure tied to the ongoing probe into Russian connections after emails showed he offered to set up a meeting with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin.
The Washington Post said the little-known Papadopoulos, who, despite having little experience was named a foreign policy adviser later to Trump, sent the campaign foreign policy team an email three days after he was appointed that said: “Meeting with Russian Leadership – Including Putin.”
Papadopoulos, offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity,according to internal campaign emails read to the newspaper.
That set off alarm bells in Trump campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York City despite later revelations that high-ranking officials were trying to do almost the same, which has led to the probe by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made, the paper said and another key adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments.
Papadopoulos didn’t give up. Between March 2016, when he sent the email, and September, he sent at least a half dozen more requests for Trump or members of his team to meet with Russian officials, an entreaty said to be rejected by then-Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, who has since turned out to be tied to Russian interests.
Papadopoulos appeared out of nowhere during the campaign and said he was graduated from DePaul University in 2009 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Government and that he got Master’s Degrees from University College London and the London School of Economics. After graduating, he said he worked from 2011 to 2015 as a research associate at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
The Post said it was unclear whether he was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government as he didn’t claim to have any ties to Moscow, but he told campaign officials he was a go-between who could broker a meeting without offering any evidence.
Three months after Papadopoulos raised the possibility of a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the President’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Son-in-Law Jared Kushner met with a delegation led by a Russian lawyer offering to provide damaging information on Clinton.
After his initial offer was rebuffed, Papadopoulos kept at it and told then-Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski in an April email that he was receiving “a lot of calls over the past month” about arranging a Russia meeting.
“Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” he wrote on April 27 and a week later sent Lewandowski and others a note he received from the program head for the government-funded Russian International Affairs Council.
HOLD THE PHONE
Ivan Timofeev, a senior official in the organization, said Russian ministry officials were open to a Trump visit to Moscow and requested that the campaign and Russians write a formal letter outlining the meeting.
Several weeks later, Papadopoulos forwarded the same message from Timofeev to Manafort, who replaced Lewandowski. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos told Manafort who told an associate that it wouldn’t happen.
In July, 2016, a few weeks after Papadopoulos asked his superiors whether other campaign advisers or aides could accept some of the Russians’ invitations, Carter Page, another foreign policy adviser, spoke at a Russian university in Moscow. Page said he made the trip independently of the campaign.
To experts in Russian intelligence gathering, the Papadopoulos chain offers further evidence that Russians were looking for entry points and playing upon connections with lower-level aides to penetrate the 2016 campaign, according to the newspaper.
Papadopoulos’ emails were among 20,000 documents the paper said were reviewed. He was , was on a list of campaign volunteers Trump announced as his foreign policy advisory team during a meeting with The Post’s editorial board in March 2016. Trump called Papadopoulos an “excellent guy” despite his lack of experience.
Page, who has been the subject of a foreign surveillance warrant over his connections to Russia, said the Papadopoulos email exchange was another sign that the Russian communications were inconsequential.
“The entirely benign offer from a volunteer member of the Trump movement is infinitely less relevant than the real collusion in the 2016 election,” said Page, who was copied on the first Papadopoulos email communication in March, blaming associates of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for allegedly giving false evidence to investigators.
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