U.S. Department of Justice
Attorney Work Product // May Contain Material Protected Under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)
meeting).[1] During that meeting, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow. Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on candidate Hillary Clinton. As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the "dirt" was in the form of "emails of Clinton," and that they "have thousands of emails."[2] On May 6, 2016, 10 days after that meeting with Mifsud, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton.[3]
- e. Russia-Related Communications With The Campaign
While he was discussing with his foreign contacts a potential meeting of campaign officials with Russian government officials, Papadopoulos kept campaign officials apprised of his efforts. On April 25, 2016, the day before Mifsud told Papadopoulos about the emails, Papadopoulos wrote to senior policy advisor Stephen Miller that "[t]he Russian government has an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump to meet him when he is ready," and that "[t]he advantage of being in London is that these governments tend to speak a bit more openly in 'neutral' cities."[4] On April 27, 2016, after his meeting with Mifsud, Papadopoulos wrote a second message to Miller stating that "some interesting messages [were] coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right."[5] The same day, Papadopoulos sent a similar email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, telling Lewandowski that Papadopoulos had "been receiving a lot of calls over the last month about Putin wanting to host [Trump] and the team when the time is right."[6]
Papadopoulos's Russia-related communications with Campaign officials continued throughout the spring and summer of 2016. On May 4, 2016, he forwarded to Lewandowski an email from Timofeev raising the possibility of a meeting in Moscow, asking Lewandowski whether that was "something we want to move forward with."[7] The next day, Papadopoulos forwarded the same Timofeev email to Sam Clovis, adding to the top of the email "Russia update."[8] He included the same email in a May 21, 2016 message to senior Campaign official Paul Manafort, under the subject line "Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump," stating that "Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite sometime and have been reaching out to me
- ↑ Papadopoulos Statement of Offense ¶ 14; 4/25/16 Text Messages, Mifsud & Papadopoulos.
- ↑ Papadopoulos Statement of Offense ¶ 14.
- ↑ This information is contained in the FBI case-opening document and related materials.
The information is law enforcement sensitive (LES) and must be treated accordingly in any external dissemination.The foreign government conveyed this information to the U.S. government on July 26, 2016, a few days after WikiLeaks's release of Clinton-related emails, The FBI opened its investigation of potential coordination between Russia and the Trump Campaign a few days later based on the information. - ↑ 4/25/16 Email, Papadopoulos to S. Miller (8:12:44 p.m.).
- ↑ 4/27/16 Email, Papadopoulos to S. Miller (6:55:58 p.m.).
- ↑ 4/27/16 Email, Papadopoulos to Lewandowski (7:15:14 p.m.).
- ↑ 5/4/16 Email, Papadopoulos to Lewandowski (8:14:49 a.m.).
- ↑ 5/5/16 Email, Papadopoulos to Clovis (7:15:21 p.m.).
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