![Former Trump campaign aide sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to FBI](https://www.jurist.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/06/manafort2.jpg)
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] sentenced former Trump campaign aid George Papadopoulos to 14 days in prison on Friday.
Judge Randolph Moss also sentenced [POLITICO report] Papadopoulos to a year probation, community service and a $9,500 fine.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty [text, PDF] last October to lying to FBI officials during the course of the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The crime has a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of probation and a fine of $250,000. Mueller’s team recommended six months in prison.
Papadopoulos told [statement of offense] FBI officials that he had discussed Hillary Clinton’s emails with a Russian professor before joining the Trump campaign. In reality Papadopoulos had already been appointed foreign policy adviser to the campaign when the meetings and discussions occurred.
At the sentencing hearing on Friday, Papadopoulos’ attorney said that Donald Trump’s attempts to discredit the Mueller investigation led Papadopoulos to lie.
Moss said that most defendants do not get any prison time for a false-statement conviction, but he felt that prison time was appropriate given the gravity of the investigation.
Last month a jury found [JURIST report] Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort guilty of eight charges of fraud. That same day Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to fraud.