The hangman’s noose continues to tighten around US President Donald Trump as his close aides and associates are being picked off one after the other in a bid to remove the unpopular American President from office.
The latest casualty in a growing list is a former advisor to US President Donald Trump George Papadopoulos whose contacts with Russians set off the investigation into possible collusion with Moscow.
George Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI.
While announcing the sentencing, US District Judge Randolph Moss acknowledged Papadopoulos guilty plea and apparent remorse, but noted that he “lied in an investigation that was important to national security.”
George Papadopoulos is the second Donald Trump aide to be sentenced to jail time in the case of Russian collusion investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller coming barely two weeks after two former top aides of Donald Trump were convicted of felony crimes in cases that developed as a result if the Russia collusion probe.
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Special counsel Mueller has racked up about 35 indictments five guilty pleas and one trial conviction in the Russia probe described by Donald Trump as trivial considering the millions of dollars spent on the probe so far.
Trump tweeted as the sentencing was announced;
“14 days for $28 MILLION – $2 MILLION a day, No Collusion. A great day for America!”
Also reacting to the verdict, Senator Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has its own Russia collusion investigation, however applauded Mueller’s work in a statement;
“Despite constant attacks by the president, Mueller and his team “are conducting a serious, professional investigation” into the 2016 Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians,” Warner said.
George Papadopoulos, 31, was an inexperienced London-based oil analyst when he joined the campaign of Donald Trump in March of 2016 on the Republican candidate’s national security advisory board.
According to his testimony, Papadopoulos was told that the priority if the campoaign was to improve relations with Russia and the young man promptly went to work on hius given mandate.
Within a few weeks of working for Donald Trump, Papadopoulos made contact with a mysterious professor, Joseph Mifsud, who boasted of having links to the Russian government.
Mifsud then introduced him to others who ostensibly had connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin including a woman who claimed to be Putin’s niece.
At a campaign meeting at the end of March 2016 Papadopoulos told Trump, then-senator and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and other campaign officials that he had connections in London that could set up a Trump-Putin meeting ahead of the November election.
According to Papadopoulos’s lawyers in a pre-sentencing statement last week;
“While some in the room rebuffed George’s offer, Mr Trump nodded with approval and deferred to Mr Sessions, who appeared to like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into it.”