Russia Probe

George Papadopoulos Gets 14-Day Sentence over Lies to FBI About Russian Contacts During Trump's Campaign

The former adviser pleaded guilty last year.

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Large image on homepages | KEN CEDENO/UPI/Newscom
(KEN CEDENO/UPI/Newscom)

George Papadopoulos, the former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump, was sentenced this afternoon for 14 days in jail for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian interests during the campaign.

Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to the crime last October. Papdopoulos had allegedly been communicating with a professor and with ties to the Russian government who told him that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, including those stolen emails. He gave false statements about his contacts to the FBI, which the FBI said impeded their investigation into the extent that Russian meddling may have worked its way into the campaign.

Papadopoulos is now opening up to the press and in an interview with The New York Times he explains:

"I wanted to distance myself as much as possible — and Trump himself and the campaign — from what was probably an illegal action or dangerous information," he said. At the time of the F.B.I. interview, he said, he was being considered for a job in the Trump administration and was concerned about where the escalating investigation might lead. He made no suggestion that anyone else on the Trump campaign or in the administration had directed him to lie.

Prosecutors had asked for six months. Papadopoulos' attorney asked for probation. In addition to the 14-day sentence, he's been fined $9,500, and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service and one year of probation.

Ken "Popehat" White, himself a former federal prosecutor (and occasional Reason contributor), doesn't see anything particularly special about the sentence:

Yeah, good luck with that. Here's Trump's response (presumably about the cost of the investigation thus far):

Probably the lesson to be learned here comes not from Trump or anybody at the FBI but from Papadopoulos' own mother, courtesy of Washington Post reporter Rosalind Helderman:

Mother knows best.