Yuri Gripas/Reuters
Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
- Trump-Russia investigators are reportedly looking into an uncorroborated letter that claims George Papadopoulos was pursuing a business deal with Russians "which would result in large financial gains for himself" and President Donald Trump after the 2016 election.
- The letter is being examined by both congressional and FBI investigators, and two US officials told The Atlantic that the FBI is taking the letter's claims "very seriously."
- Papadopoulos began serving out his two-week prison sentence for lying to the FBI this week.
- But the revelation that officials are probing the letter indicates Papadopoulos is still a significant player in ongoing investigations into whether Trump associates colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election.
FBI and congressional investigators are looking into a new and uncorroborated claim that the former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos said he was pursuing a business deal with Russians "which would result in large financial gains for himself" and President Donald Trump, The Atlantic reported.
A Democratic source on the House Intelligence Committee confirmed to INSIDER that the letter was sent to ranking member Adam Schiff's office earlier this month from someone who claims to have been close to Papadopoulos in late 2016 and early 2017. Two US officials also told The Atlantic that federal authorities are investigating the letter and taking its claims "very seriously."
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty last year to one count of lying to the FBI and began serving his two-week prison sentence on November 26. But the revelation that authorities are probing the letter shows Papadopoulos is still a significant figure of interest in ongoing investigations into whether Trump associates colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election.
Papadopoulos denies having any financial links to Russia. But in a court filing announcing his guilty plea last year, prosecutors laid out multiple attempts by Papadopoulos to set up meetings between campaign officials and Russians during the election.
Read more: George Papadopoulos tweets offer at Comey: Testify publicly and I'll withdraw my request for immunity
Papadopoulos told the FBI that his outreach to the Russia-linked foreign nationals occurred before he joined the campaign. But his first interaction with an "overseas professor" with ties to high-level Russian officials occurred on March 14, 2016, weeks after he joined the campaign.
That professor, Joseph Mifsud, told Papadopoulos just over a month later that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton that came in the form of "thousands of emails," according to the charging document.
Papadopoulos later told the top Australian diplomat Alexander Downer about the claim that Russia had kompromat on Clinton. That conversation, which Downer relayed to US officials, is what prompted the FBI to launch the Russia investigation.
Papadopoulos also told the FBI that he met with a Russian woman who claimed to be a relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin - Papadopoulos described her as Russian President Vladimir Putin's "niece" in one email - before he joined the campaign, but he actually met her on March 24, according to the court filing.
"He believed she had connections to Russian government officials; and he sought to use her Russian connections over a period of months in an effort to arrange a meeting between the campaign and Russian government officials," prosecutors said.
Thomson Reuters
Trump stunned observers when he rebuffed the US intelligence community in favor of Russia in Helsinki.
In another instance, Papadopoulos emailed then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in April 2016 saying he had received "a lot of calls over the past month" about how "Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right," according to The Washington Post. He emailed Lewandowski and another campaign adviser, Sam Clovis, on May 4 to ask again about setting up a meeting.
"There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen," Clovis replied.
Two months later, on July 14, 2016, Papadopoulos emailed one of the foreign contacts and indicated a meeting had "been approved from our side."
The meeting, Papadopoulos wrote, would be "for August or September in the UK (London) with me and my national chairman, and maybe one other foreign policy adviser and you, members of president putin's office and the mfa to hold a day of consultations and to meet one another."
Papadopoulos expressed remorse for lying to the FBI about his Russia connections during his sentencing hearing in September. But he has since adopted a drastically different tone by claiming in recent months that he was entrapped by the FBI and that his interactions with Mifsud were part of an elaborate set-up by Western intelligence.
According to The Atlantic, Papadopoulos' baseless claims were what prompted the unnamed author of the letter to come forward. The person reportedly said they were willing to take a polygraph test "to prove that I am being truthful" and added that they decided to send the letter after observing Papadopoulos "become increasingly hostile towards those who are investigating him and his associates."
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