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Papadopoulos lied about contacts with people who claimed to have
ties to top Russian officials, Special Counsel Robert Mueller
said in court documents released with his guilty plea.
As part of a deal with prosecutors, Papadopoulos agreed to plead
guilty to making a "materially false, fictitious and fraudulent
statement" to FBI agents.
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss set sentencing for Sept.
7 in a Washington court and ordered prosecutors to file their
recommendation for punishment by Aug. 17.
Papadopoulos faces up to six months in jail and a fine of up to
$9,500, but prosecutors said in the plea agreement that
Papadopoulos was cooperating in the investigation, which could
lessen his sentence.
Prosecutors said Papadopoulos told FBI agents he had been in
contact with an unnamed foreign professor who claimed Russia had
"dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
before he joined Trump's campaign in March 2016. In fact, they
said, Papadopoulos met with the professor after joining the
campaign.
The prosecutors said Papadopoulos also lied to the FBI in saying
that a meeting the professor arranged for him in London with an
unidentified Russian woman with ties to senior Russian officials
occurred before he joined the campaign.
Papadopoulos would be the second person sentenced in connection
with Mueller's probe. In April, Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan
was sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000 for lying
to Mueller's investigators.
(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Tom
Brown)
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