![](\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/thumbnail\/5c9b2766fc7e93bb598b457d.jpg\")
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No longer bound by a gag order, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has gone public about his Mueller probe conviction, describing the Russia collusion narrative as a \u2018hoax\u2019 manufactured by intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n
Papadopoulos, who served 12 days in prison last fall for lying to investigators, has launched a media blitz to clarify \u201cmisinformation\u201d<\/em> about his guilty plea following the end of special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s Russia probe.<\/p>\n Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Papadopoulos explained<\/a> that the FBI had tried to pressure him to \u201cadmit\u201d<\/em> that he had told someone at the Trump campaign about his conversations with a shadowy professor, Joseph Mifsud. Painted as a Russian agent by the FBI, Mifsud told Papadopoulos during a London meeting that Russia had possession of Hillary Clinton\u2019s emails. The professor went missing in September 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause if I had told anyone in the campaign, it would have been a conspiracy, but it would have been based on Western intelligence basically fabricating the entire thing,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I am talking to Mueller\u2019s people and they are trying to get me to say something that I know is not true, I just couldn\u2019t. I had to stick to the facts, the truth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The 31-year-old was framed as the cornerstone of the Trump campaign\u2019s alleged collaboration with the Kremlin, after he supposedly\u00a0told Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, that Russia had Clinton’s emails.<\/p>\n But Papadopoulos told \u2018Fox & Friends\u2019 that he never discussed the issue with Downer.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually was the one who reported Downer to both the FBI and Bob Mueller because of his very bizarre, strange behavior during my meeting with him. He was pulling his phone out, he was recording me. It was very bizarre,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Mueller\u2019s probe into alleged Russia collusion was a \u201choax,\u201d<\/em> Papadopoulos said, but he wasn\u2019t allowed to comment on it until after he was sentenced.<\/p>\n Papadopoulos is currently promoting a book about his experience, \u201cDeep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Mueller\u2019s nearly two-year probe, which ended on Friday, concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Curiously, investigators charged Papadopoulos with \u201clying in order to conceal his contacts with Russians and Russian intermediaries\u201d<\/em> \u2013 an allegation which the former Trump official is now disputing.<\/p>\n Like this story? Share it with a friend!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No longer bound by a gag order, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has gone public about his Mueller probe conviction, describing the Russia collusion narrative as a \u2018hoax\u2019 manufactured by intelligence agencies. Papadopoulos, who served 12 days in prison last fall for lying to investigators, has launched a media blitz to clarify \u201cmisinformation\u201d about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":401658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-401657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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