President Donald Trump's reference in 2016 to the indicted George Papadopoulos as an "excellent guy" during a sitdown with The Washington Post belies the White House's attempt to whitewash him as an irrelevant figure.
In a Q&A session, then-candidate Trump did with the editorial board of the Post in March of 2016, he was asked about specifics of his foreign policy team.
"Well, I hadn't thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names … Walid Phares, who you probably know, Ph.D, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page, Ph.D; George Papadopoulos, he's an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy," Trump said, according to the transcript published by the Post on March 21, 2016.
Trump and the White House are now in a full sprint away from Papadopoulos, painting him as a "low-level volunteer named George" who had very little to do with the campaign.
"He asked to do things (and) he was basically pushed back or not responded to in any way," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday during a news briefing. "Any actions that he took would have been on his own."
Papadopoulos was named in an indictment Monday for pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his role in working with Russian operatives against Trump's election opponent, Hillary Clinton.