George Papadopoulos may be going to jail, but he ain’t going quietly.Fresh from getting slapped with a two-week prison sentence for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian intermediaries advising Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Papadopoulos borrowed a favorite trope of the president’s, launching a Twitter rant Monday night in which he suggested foreign powers had been out to get him.In a series of tweets, he implied shadowy political forces in Australia and the U.K. had targeted him, and he asked the FBI to investigate.Papadopoulos, 31, took aim at former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer in particular, with whom the former Trump aide had shared drinks at an upscale London bar in the early days of the campaign, in May 2016.According to The New York Times, Papadopoulos confessed to Downer over drinks that he’d been told by a London-based professor, who is reportedly suspected of being a Russian operative, that Russia had acquired emails with damaging information about Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.Papadopoulos, however, has claimed to have no recollection of telling Downer about those emails — even though he remembers other details about that night, including the cocktail he ordered, a gin and tonic.
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Papadopoulos said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he’d lied to the FBI about his contacts with the mysterious Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud, in order to protect Trump.“You were trying to protect the president?” ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos asked.“Of course,” Papadopoulos replied.Alas, the Sunday talk shows didn't seem to satisfy the embattled aide, who apparently had more to say on the matter. Naturally, he turned to Twitter to pick up the slack.
Cover image: A protester holds a banner as former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos with his wife Simona Mangiante leaves after his sentencing hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., September 7, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas