Sept. 7 (UPI) — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos to 14 days in jail Friday for lying to the FBI in its Russia probe.
District Judge Randolph Moss denied the 31-year-old’s request for probation. Prosecutors sought a sentence of up to six months in prison.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about meetings with individuals closely associated with the Russian government during the campaign. Court documents say Papadopoulos worked to create a relationship between the campaign and the Kremlin after then-candidate Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination.
His lawyers said he was “young” and lied out of “misguided loyalty to his master.”
Trump named Papadopoulos as one of his campaign’s foreign policy advisers on March 21, 2016, boasting to reporters: “He’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy,” a filing said. A few days later, Papadopoulos met in London with professor Joseph Mifsud, who introduced him to a woman named Olga, whom he believed to be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s niece, about arranging a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials.
On March 31, 2016, Papadopoulos joined Trump, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions and other campaign officials for a national security meeting, the filing continued. Papadopoulos announced he could help set up a foreign policy meeting with Trump and Putin, as “Trump nodded with approval,” and Sessions added that “the campaign should look into it.”
Papadopoulos was the first Trump campaign adviser sentenced in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in 2016 election.
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