Former Trump adviser lied to FBI about seeking Russia's help in 2016 campaign

(Bloomberg) -- US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, tasked with pursuing collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, just planted the first stake.

Prosecutors on Mueller’s team revealed Monday that a foreign policy adviser on Trump’s campaign, George Papadopoulos, pursued Russia’s help in the 2016 US presidential campaign and sought to open communication lines to the Kremlin. 

Papadopoulos worked with an international professor who promised compromising information from Russia about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He also met with a Russian woman he believed could broker a meeting between the campaign and Russian officials.

He then lied about the timing and content of those interactions to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On October 5, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying in a sealed document that was made public Monday in Washington D.C. Ominously for the White House, Papadopoulos is cooperating with the investigation.

Papadopoulos’s plea was unexpected on a day when Mueller’s charges were unsealed against Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager, and Manafort’s onetime deputy Rick Gates, accusing them of money laundering, tax crimes and conspiracy.

The question now is who else in Trump’s campaign may have aided that effort or been aware of it. The court documents referenced an unidentified campaign supervisor, and a second campaign official who nixed Papadopoulos’s idea of setting up a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a statement of the offense, prosecutors describe how Papadopoulos held himself out to be conduit between the Trump campaign and high-level Russian officials, including Putin. Papadopoulos was one of five foreign policy advisers to the Trump campaign.

An unidentified London professor who had made contact with Papadopoulos in 2016 claimed to have "dirt" on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails, according to the court filing. The professor was said to have substantial connections to Russian government officials.

Papadopoulos met with the professor in London around March 21, 2016, prosecutors said. The professor brought with him a "female Russian national" introduced to Papadopoulos as a relative of Putin.

Ten days later, the indictment said, Papadopoulos attended a "national security meeting" that included Trump. When introduced at the meeting, Papadopoulos said he had connections he could use to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin, it said.

That unnamed Russian national began communicating with Papadopoulos after the meeting. "As mentioned we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump," she wrote in an April 2016 email disclosed by prosecutors. "The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced."

Also around that time, prosecutors said, Papadopoulos emailed a high-ranking official of the Trump campaign "to discuss Russia’s interest in hosting Mr. Trump. Have been receiving a lot of calls over the last month about Putin wanting to host him and the team when the time is right."

Days later, Papadopoulos thanked the professor for his "critical help" in arranging a meeting between campaign aides and the Russian government, saying, “It’s history making if it happens,” according to prosecutors.

Papadopoulos was arrested after arriving at Dulles International Airport on July 27, 2017, according to the court filing. The day before, FBI agents executed a no-knock search warrant on Manafort’s Virginia home, in which they secured files stored on Manafort’s computer.