Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said he does not believe George Papadopoulos’ claim that he does not remember telling Trump campaign officials about Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.
“This guy Papadopoulos, I’ve never met him, but he clearly is aspiring to be a player,” Warner said. “And my understanding is he can’t remember whether he turned that information over to other senior people in the Trump campaign. That’s not very believable.”
Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, made his comments on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday following Papadopoulos’ sentencing on Friday to 14 days in prison for lying to investigators about his contact with individuals tied to Russia during the 2016 campaign.
The Virginia senator told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the committee had received some documents from Papadopoulos, but added that the panel would still “love to talk with him.”
Papadopoulos told CNN in an interview that aired Friday that he did not remember telling the campaign about emails from Russia on Clinton but could not be sure.
“As far as I remember, I absolutely did not share this information with anyone on the campaign,” the ex-campaign aide said, adding, “I might have, but I have no recollection of doing so. I can’t guarantee. All I can say is, my memory is telling me that I never shared it with anyone on the campaign.”
Warner said in response that he thought it was unlikely Papadopoulos would not have come forward to the campaign.
“It just stretches, I think, most people’s credibility that if Papadopoulos had this knowledge and he wanted to try to further ingratiate himself with the campaign, that he wouldn’t have shared that with somebody on the campaign,” Warner said.
