President Donald Trump pardoned former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos on Tuesday, along with over a dozen other people, including several former congressmen who have long been Republican allies of the president.
Papadopoulos, best known for playing a key role in the lengthy investigation into Russian election interference, thanked the President in a Twitter post.
Thank you, Mr. President!!! This means the world to me and my family!
— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) December 23, 2020
He went on to say:
I lost friends, business associates and even family over the last years. Had my reputation tore up for a while with fake stories and nonsense. But there was one person who stood through it all with me until the end, my @simonamangiante. I love you! We both thank @realDonaldTrump!
— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) December 23, 2020
Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign, told an Australian diplomat while they were having drinks at a London wine bar that he’d heard that Russia had thousands of emails that would embarrass Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton.
He was sentenced to 14 days in a federal lockup and one year of supervised release in September 2018 for lying to investigators.
After he was released from prison, Papadopoulos wrote a book called “Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump,” and ran a failed campaign for Congress.
By pardoning Papadopoulos, Trump once again took aim at special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, part of a broader effort by Trump to undo the results of the investigation that yielded criminal charges against a half-dozen associates.
