‘You should do it’: Trump officials encouraged George Papadopoulos’s foreign outreach, documents show
As late as December 2016, as President-elect Trump was preparing to take office, Papadopoulos tried to serve as a conduit for the defense minister of Greece, transmitting what he said was a proposal for a strategic alliance from the Russian-allied Greek official that was reviewed by Bannon and Flynn, then in line to be national security adviser.
.. Papadopoulos is the only Trump associate known to have told prosecutors he had advance warning the Russians held emails that could be damaging to Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. A London-based professor told Papadopoulos in April 2016 that the Russians had dirt on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails
.. The documents also indicate that amid Papadopoulos’s advocacy of closer ties to Russia, he retained access to top officials — even after Trump’s victory.
.. In July 2015, Papadopoulos contacted then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski about his interest in joining Trump’s campaign,
.. In December 2015, Papadopoulos went to work for the campaign of neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was then challenging Trump for the GOP nomination.
After several months, Papadopoulos reached out again to the Trump campaign to inform them he would be leaving the flagging Carson campaign.
“I wanted to let you know that I stopped working as Ben Carson’s principal foreign policy adviser. I’d be interested in getting on board with the Trump team. Is the team looking to expand?” Papadopoulos wrote to Glassner early in March 2016.
At the time, Trump was surging in the polls, and the real estate developer was under increasing pressure to name foreign policy advisers to his team.
.. Later that month, Trump himself named Papadopoulos among a list of five people advising his campaign on foreign policy during a meeting with The Washington Post editorial board. “Excellent guy,” the candidate said.
At the end of March, Papadopoulos attended a meeting of Trump’s newly named national security advisory group at the candidate’s not-yet-opened hotel in Washington. After introducing himself, the young adviser announced he could organize a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump, according to court documents.
In May, Papadopoulos forwarded to campaign officials a note he received from Timofeev informing him that Russian Foreign Ministry officials were open to a Trump visit. That idea was batted down by campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who emailed his associate Rick Gates: “We need to communicate that DT is not doing these trips.”
.. The emails show Papadopoulos was the first to alert the campaign to al-Sissi’s interest in meeting and that he then connected top campaign leadership to the Egyptian Embassy.