'I Can't Guarantee It': George Papadopoulos Admits He Might Have Told Trump Campaign Russia Had Dirt On Hillary Clinton
On Friday, CNN is airing an exclusive interview between George Papadopoulos and Jake Tapper. And during the course of that interview, Papadopoulos has made an astonishing confession: despite his repeated denials that he informed anyone on the campaign that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, he "can't guarantee" he did not tell someone.
"There are going to be people out there who think, 'there's no way George Papadopoulos didn't tell anyone on the campaign,'" Tapper said. "Did you tell anyone on the campaign?"
"As far as I remember, I absolutely did not," said Papadopoulos.
"You didn't tell Corey Lewandowski?" Tapper pressed him.
"As far as I remember, I absolutely did not share this information with anyone on the campaign."
"Not Sam Clovis?"
"Anyone."
"Dearborn?"
"Anyone."
"Mashburn?"
"Anyone."
"Waleed Faris? None of them?"
Finally, Papadopoulos broke. "I might have," he said, "but I have no recollection of doing so. I can't guarantee it. All I can say is that my memory is telling me that I never shared it with anyone on the campaign."
George Papadopoulos tells @JakeTapper he "can't guarantee" he didn't tell the Trump campaign about Russian dirt. Watch the full exclusive interview tonight at 11pm ET on CNN https://t.co/RJulxlavTK pic.twitter.com/yg4BqxGerP
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) September 7, 2018
Papadopoulos, who served as an adviser on President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, was sentenced to 14 days in prison on Friday for lying to the FBI in the investigation of the campaign's potential ties to Russia. He allegedly was offered stolen information on Hillary Clinton by Russian intermediaries.
Trump has since tried to dismiss him as a "coffee boy" who was barely involved in the campaign, but in fact he was a key part of the foreign policy team, and communicated extensively with major Trump allies like Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. Emails also show that campaign officials encouraged him to pursue contacts with Russia.
If Papadopoulos had not in fact communicated to the campaign that Russia had ill-gotten information on Clinton, that would be extraordinarily ironic, given that one of the main events that first led the FBI to open an investigation into the Trump campaign was allegedly that Papadopoulos boasted over drinks about Russian dirt on Clinton to an Australian diplomat.
