Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was been sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI.
Papadopoulos admitted to lying to investigators about conversations he had with the now missing Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, who baited an ambitious and naive Papadopoulos into discussing fairytale Russian government “dirt” on then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Papadopoulos apologized for his actions during his sentencing hearing last, telling the judge that he had made a “dreadful mistake” and was eager for redemption. Mueller’s witch hunt prosecutors wanted a sentence of up to six months, while Papadopoulos’ lawyers asked for probation.
Meanwhile Papadopoulos’ wife, Simona Maginante, has made the rounds on media channels claiming that her husband was entrapped by the FBI and pressured into pleading guilty.
Maginante told Business Insider...
“Knowing his case, he clearly didn’t commit any crime, since every crime is characterized by a ‘status of mind’ [sic] and a motive, it’s pretty clear George had no reason to lie about the date in which he met with professor Mifsud.”
In the latest bizarre twist in the Russiagate hoax, on the day George Papadopoulos was sentenced to two weeks in prison, lawyers involved in an “unrelated” case where the corrupt DNC is suing Russia, WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign over alleged interference in the 2016 election, raised the prospect professor Joseph Mifsud may be dead.
The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the George Papadopoulos sentence, and his recent media appearances…all the while, the secret professor/spy Joseph Mifsud went missing last year (and has remained missing), after Robert Mueller announced the first charges relating to his investigation into imaginary links between Russia and the Trump administration.
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Via The Independent UK…
Joseph Mifsud, a former teaching fellow at Stirling University, held meetings in 2016 with George Papadopoulos, a former Trump administration foreign policy adviser who was jailed last week for lying to the FBI, including over his connections to the 57-year-old professor.
Prosecutors in the Papadopoulos case allege Mr Mifsud touted his “substantial connections with Russian government officials”, who could deliver “thousands of emails” featuring incriminating information against Ms Clinton.
But in unrelated court filings last week, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) claimed Mr Mifsud, who has not been seen since November last year, “may be deceased”.
The DNC is suing Russia, WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign over alleged interference in the 2016 election. Lawyers for the committee said it believed all defendants in the case were served with complaints, “with the exception of Mifsud (who is missing and may be deceased),” according to Bloomberg. They did not elaborate.
Court documents relating to the Papadopoulos case revealed the young foreign policy adviser initially tried to downplay Mr Mifsud as “a nothing” and “just a guy talk[ing] up connections or something”.
“In truth and in fact, however, defendant Papadopoulos understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials (and had met with some of those officials in Moscow immediately prior to telling defendant Papadopoulos about the ‘thousands of emails’),” the statement of offence read.
Mr Mifsud went missing last year, shortly after special counsel Robert Mueller announced the first charges relating to his investigation into links between Russia and the Trump administration.
On 30 October, Mr Mueller’s office made public Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, as well as charges against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates.
On 1 November, La Repubblica located Mr Mifsud in Rome. The academic told the newspaper he met Papadopoulos “three of four times”, but that the claims over election interference were “nonsense”.
“Papadopoulos doesn’t tell the truth,” he said. “The only thing I did was to facilitate contacts between official and unofficial sources to resolve a crisis. It is usual business everywhere. I put think tanks in contact, groups of experts with other groups of experts.
He continued: “I strongly deny any discussion of mine about secrets concerning Hillary Clinton. I swear it on my daughter. I don’t know anyone belonging to the Russian government.”
Mr Mifsud appears not to have been seen since he made those comments, even by Italian prosecutors attempting to track him down over an unrelated court summons in Italy.
His Ukrainian fiancée, who reportedly gave birth to his daughter earlier this year, has also said she has not seen him in months.
As well as offering emails, Mr Mifsud also introduced 31-year-old Papadopoulos to a woman named Olga, who claimed to be a niece of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and a man named Ivan Timofeev, who claimed to have a connection to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Prosecutors said Papadopoulos’s false statements to the FBI contributed to their inability to secure an interview with the professor.
“The defendant’s lies undermined investigators’ ability to challenge the professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States,” they wrote in court papers, noting Mr Mifsud left the US in February 2017 and has not returned.
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