George Papadopoulos wasn’t the “low-level volunteer” or “coffee boy” team Trump wanted you to believe after he pleaded guilty as part of a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller. We knew that already, but Papadopolous’s Italian fiancé revealed more about the former Trump campaign adviser.
“George is very loyal to his country,” Simona Mangiante told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. “He is already on the right side of history. I think he will make a big difference.”
Mangiante wanted to weigh in publicly in order to counter claims from Trump and his aides that Papadopoulos was, as Trump tweeted, a “young, low level [sic] volunteer.”
She explained that Papadopoulos played a key role in the Trump administration.
“First of all, I would love George to learn how to make a coffee, because it’s absolutely out of his skills,” she said jokingly. “George is a remarkable young man with incredible experience in the field of energy and oil policies. This experience led him to get into the campaign and to advise the president at only 28 years old.”
Mangiante told Stephanopolous that Papadopolous “set up meetings with leaders all over the world” for senior campaign officials. She added that he was “constantly in touch with high-level officials in the campaign,” and that includes direct communication with now-former senior Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. Mangiante added that she had seen correspondence supporting that but said that she has been instructed by attorneys to not provide emails or other possible evidence to reporters.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders previously said that his role was “extremely limited.”
“It was a volunteer position,” she said in October and campaign adviser Michael Caputo claimed that he was just a “coffee boy.”
“He never took any initiative, as far as I know, [that was] unauthorized. All the initiatives had [the] blessing of the campaign,” she said.
According to court records, Papodopolous was approached by an unnamed professor “with substantial connections to Russian government officials” who told him he could get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton after he learned of his role in the Trump administration.
Mangiante identified the professor as Joseph Mifsud, a man who she found to be dubious because he didn’t strike her as an academic.
“He always [was] someone networking [with] people from different governments,” she said, and added that she now believes Mifsud became interested in Papadopoulos “precisely because he was working for Trump.”
Mangiante said that it may be that Papadopoulos “didn’t really realize what was going on” when the professor offered to provide him with connections in Russia.
So, he wasn’t just a covfefe boy, after all.
Watch the full report here:
Photo via Twitter.
