‘Bombshell’ footnote shows Trump campaign was open to meeting with Russians

BURIED deep in documents related to a Trump campaign staffer lying about his connections to Russia is a “bombshell” four-line footnote.

BURIED deep in the court documents related to a Trump campaign staffer who lied to the FBI about his connections to Russian operatives is a four-line footnote.

In a day of explosive developments in the investigation into possible Russian collusion in the US election, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash said this was the “bombshell” for the US President.

Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to making false statements and omissions to the FBI about his relationships with Russian operatives, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years’ jail and a $250,000 fine.

He made repeated attempts last year to set up a “history making” overseas meeting between the campaign and the Russian government during the race for the White House, something other campaign officials were open to, the documents reveal.

According to a footnote in the documents, an unnamed campaign official stepped in to ensure that there was distance between Mr Trump and the proposed meeting “so as not to send any signal”.

“We need someone to communicate that DT [Donald Trump] is not doing these trips,” the campaign official said in an email to another staffer.

“It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

The footnote that attempts to create distance between Donald Trump and a proposed meeting between his campaign and the Russians.

This is the most direct evidence yet that connects Russian meddling in the US election to the Trump campaign. Speaking on CNN on Monday, Bash said “this is the bombshell”.

Mr Papadopoulos offered to make an “off-the-record” trip to meet Russian insiders in June 2016.

Two months later, a “campaign supervisor” wrote to Mr Papadopoulos and said “I would encourage you” and another campaign foreign policy adviser to “make the trip … if it is feasible”.

Carl Bernstein, the revered investigative journalist who broke the Watergate scandal, told CNN: “This is about a conspiracy to collude to undermine an American election.”

The documents show Mr Papadopoulos cultivated a relationships with an unnamed professor with “substantial connections” to the Russian government and a “female Russian national” in order to score “dirt” on Mr Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton.

The professor, who only became interested in working with Mr Papadopoulos after he learnt he was a part of Mr Trump’s campaign, told Mr Papadopoulos that the Russians “have dirt on her … they have thousands of emails”.

The documents mention, but do not name, several other Trump campaign staffers who were aware of Mr Papadopoulos’s work, including a “senior policy adviser” and a “high-ranking campaign official”.

Mr Papadopoulos mentioned his connections to Russia during a national security meeting attended by Mr Trump in Washington in March 2016, when the president was still a candidate.

“When defendant Papadopoulos introduced himself to group, he stated, in sum and substance, that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin,” the documents read.

After the meeting, Mr Trump referred to Mr Papadopoulos as an “excellent guy”, according to The Washington Post.

Donald Trump tweeted a picture in March of 2016 that shows George Papadopoulos in a national security meeting with him.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the national security group met only once and that Mr Trump did not recall Mr Papadopoulos making the offer to set up a meeting.

She said the revelations had “nothing to do with the President, has nothing to do with the President’s campaign or campaign activity” and reiterated that there was “no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion”.

Mr Papadopoulos had an “extremely limited”, volunteer role with the campaign and none of his actions were conducted in an “official capacity”, she said. His “outreach” was repeatedly “pushed back”.

“It has nothing to do with the activities of the campaign. It has to do with his failure to tell the truth,” Ms Huckabee Sanders said.

“He was not paid by the campaign, he was a volunteer on a council that met once.

“He asked to do things, he was basically pushed back or not responded to in any way. So any actions that he took would have been on his own.”

Mr Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI “about the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials”.

The investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians has cast a shadow over Donald Trump’s first year in office. Picture: AFP/Saul Loeb

The Trump staffer initially told the FBI that the professor was a nobody who was “BS’ing to be completely honest with you”, but investigators later discovered that he had described him as a “good friend” in an email to several members of the Trump campaign.

Mr Papadopoulos thought his connection to the professor could “increase his importance as a policy adviser to the campaign”.

Despite his repeated attempts to set up a meeting between the Russians and the Trump campaign, one never occurred.

After his January 27 interview with the FBI, Mr Papadopoulos deleted his 12-year-old Facebook account, which contained information about his communications with Russian advocates, and changed his mobile phone number.

Mr Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow told CNN on Monday that he was “not concerned” about the revelations because there was “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

“The crime was lying about the timeline to the agents,” he said. “It’s not illegal to get opposition research.”

This was not the only time people with Russian connections had offered to serve up dirt on Mrs Clinton.

Mr Trump’s son Donald Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York hoping to gain damaging information on the Democratic presidential candidate. Donald Jr said nothing became of the meeting.

Mr Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were both hit with 12 charges on Monday, including conspiracy against the US, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an “unregistered agent” of the Ukrainian government, making false and misleading statements to investigators, and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. The White House said the charges had “nothing to do with the President, has nothing to do with the President’s campaign or campaign activity”.

Mr Trump is yet to make any comment on Mr Papadopoulos.