I am Maureen Cavanaugh. It is Tuesday, October 31. Our top story midday addition the only man so far who has entered a guilty plea in the Trump Russia approach that scope probe was characterized by Trump as a low level and a liar. The president also criticized fake news and a series of tweets and urged investigators to check the Dems. Others who examined the guilty plea made by George Papadopoulos a former advisor for the Trump campaign are finding links that may prove collusion between the campaign and Russia efforts to influence the election. The president's reaction to all of this in tweets and statements they have their own impact on the investigation. Joining me is Thomas McNamara McNamara Smith LLP. He is a former assistant U.S. attorney focusing on major economic crimes and public corruption. Mr. McNamara welcome to the program. Papadopoulos was arrested in July. He did not enter a guilty plea until early this month. Might account for the three month interval.It tells you that when he was arrested he immediately cooperated with agents and prosecutors. I expect that for the last three and half months, he has been sitting down with prosecutors and laying out everything he knows about his involvement between himself and his efforts to reach out to Russian operatives.You have worked cases like this where you attempt to build a chain of suspects. After it was made clear to Papadopoulos that the FBI knew that he lied about his FBI contacts, what options would he have had? Would he have had to cooperate?He could have said charge me and prove it in court. Based upon my reading of the charges, and his plea agreement, they had all the documentary evidence to demonstrate that he had in fact minimized and lied to agents. Aside from fighting the charges, the easier way was to cooperate and plea.How often do you see targets in cases like this lie to investigators and the I VI -- FBI especially when the lie is easy to find out.It is not unusual. You know the old adage is the cover-up is worse than the crime. Mr. Papadopoulos is not charged with a crime related to his conduct in the 2016, instead he is charged with lying to what he said to agents minimizing his involvement and lying about the timing of his contacts with Russia or these people who claim to have Russian contacts.Do you see a pace between -- a difference between the pace of Papadopoulos and the indictment for Manafort and his aide?If I were a betting man, the timing of the release of both indictments and the plea agreement was to send a powerful message. Manafort is a different animal. The charges are different than the charges against Papadopoulos. The Manafort charges are unrelated to his role as campaign manager to Trump. In fact they stem from 2006 to 2016. But by releasing the indictment, having the arraignment in the plea agreement at the same time, it is a powerful message to others involved and others in the scope of the investigation.I have heard some describe the case against Manafort as a paper case largely focused on documents that are impossible to dispute. Some attorneys said it is impossible for a deferment -- defendant to win a case like that. Do you expect a trial or a plea for Manafort?If the government has what they claim to have in the indictment, it is a paper case. One that can be made by documents itself. It appears that Manafort set up a number of foreign entities and ran his payments from Ukraine and other foreign clients through his entities and did not pay taxes on the income, failed to register as a foreign lobbying agent, and a number of other related violations. It will be difficult to me again based on the indictment assuming that the prosecuting agents have the documents to back up their claim.The White House said the indictments and the guilty plea that we found out yesterday, Robert Mueller's investigation is winding down as and in fact almost over. Is that how you see it?Not at all. My expectation is the indictment against Manafort was to put pressure on him to determine whether he has information that he can cooperate against president donald trump would be my take on what they have done. That is one side of the ledger. The other side is Papadopoulos appears to me to be the standard law enforcement investigation. You start with the low level folks and you try to roll them back. He has been talking for the last three months. I assume they have great information. Any criminal investigation, you try to roll up from the bottom and that is what they are doing with Papadopoulos.I have been speaking with Thomas McNamara a partner with McNamara Smith and thank you for talking with us.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a former campaign aide thrust into the center of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe "has already proven to be a liar."
On Twitter, Trump sought to dismiss George Papadopoulos, who has provided key evidence in the first criminal case connecting Trump's team to alleged intermediaries for Russia's government.
Said Trump: "Few people knew the young, low-level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!"
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Papadopoulos was approached by people claiming ties to Russia and offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails, according to court documents unsealed Monday. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about the conversations and has been cooperating with investigators, the documents said.
Papadopoulos' guilty plea and the possibility that he's working with Mueller's team came as an unexpected twist in the mounting drama surrounding the criminal probe. A separate welter of charges Mueller announced Monday against Trump's ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime aide Rick Gates do not appear directly related to their work for Trump.
But Papadopoulos' case cuts close to the central question of Mueller's investigation: Did Russia try to sway the election? Did Trump's campaign know?
"The Russians had emails of Clinton," Papadopoulos was told by an unnamed professor with ties to Russia during a breakfast meeting at a London hotel in April. U.S. investigators said that the following day, Papadopoulos then emailed a Trump campaign policy adviser, "Have some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right."
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Papadopoulos was arrested in July and has been interviewed repeatedly by authorities, the filing said. After entering his guilty plea he was ordered not to contact other Trump officials and prohibited from foreign travel. In one of the unsealed files, an FBI agent working for Mueller bluntly hinted that more former Trump associates could soon be questioned.
Papadopoulos' lawyer, Thomas M. Breen, based in Chicago, declined to comment on the guilty plea but noted that "we will have the opportunity to comment on George's involvement when called upon by the court at a later date. We look forward to telling all of the details of George's story at that time."
The incident echoes elements of a June 2016 meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials at Trump Tower. The president's son organized that sit down with a Russian lawyer who was offering negative information about Clinton.
The White House immediately cast Papadopoulos as a mere volunteer with little influence during last year's campaign. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said his role was "extremely limited" and that "no activity was ever done in an official capacity on behalf of the campaign."
Trump named Papadopoulos to his foreign policy advisory council in March 2016, among a short list of experts amid growing public pressure on Trump to demonstrate he had a bench of foreign policy expertise.
During a March 21, 2016 meeting with The Washington Post editorial board, Trump called Papadopoulos an "excellent guy."
Shortly afterward, Trump tweeted a photo of his advisory council meeting, with Papadopoulos among a handful of advisers at the president's table. In his plea filing, Papadopolous admitted that he told Trump and other top campaign national security officials during that meeting, that he had made contact with intermediaries for Russia who said they could set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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The court filings recount Papadopoulos' meetings abroad starting in March 2016, after he'd been named to Trump's board. Papadopoulos initially told the investigators the meetings came before, and later admitted that was untrue. Papadopoulos also deleted a Facebook post about his travels, the documents said.
The court filings say he met first with the unnamed professor who boasted of damaging emails and then later with an unnamed Russian woman, who claimed to be related to Putin and sought to arrange a meeting between Trump and the Russian leader. The professor also introduced Papadopoulos to a third unnamed person who claimed he had connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two men then exchanged emails about a possible meeting between Trump campaign aides and Russian government officials.
The court records didn't specify which emails the Russian claimed to have.
The timing of the new disclosures about Clinton emails may be significant because the scope of the Kremlin's efforts to hack Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee were just beginning to be understood by March 2016, weeks before Papadopoulos was told of damaging emails.
It's unclear how frequently Papadopoulos was in contact with the campaign officials. Sanders initially said the foreign policy advisory board convened only once, but the White House later clarified she was speaking only of official meetings with Trump in attendance. An official involved with the group said the group met on a monthly basis throughout the spring and summer for a total of about six meetings.
