Papadopoulos on AG’s new powers: ‘Trump is now on the offense’

Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos celebrated the president’s decision this week to direct Attorney General William Barr to declassify information related to the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign, calling it a sign Trump was going “on the offense.”

In an interview airing Sunday with AM 970’s “The Answer” in New York, Papadopoulos told John Catsimatidis that his prosecution and the prosecutions of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn were unsuccessful attempts to force Trump to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

“They wanted to make an example out of us. They wanted to squeeze us in order to get Trump. It didn’t work,” Papadopoulos said in the interview.

“President Trump is now on the offense,” he continued. “And once he starts declassifying materials — as you probably have been seeing in the media about my case, where I’m basically telling informants that I have nothing to do with the Russians, yet they still use it against me — you might start seeing people on the other side going to jail for conspiracy. And I hope they do.”

Papadopoulos added that the federal government targeted him because of his connection to the president and not because of actual wrongdoing.

“Most people who work for Donald Trump, if not all of them, either got bankrupt, their life thrown in a whirlwind, or found themselves in short or long jail sentences. My short answer to you is if the feds want to get you, they’re going to get you,” he argued.

Papadopoulos was released from prison in December following his conviction for lying to investigators about foreign contacts. In a new book, he argued that he was pressured into signing a plea agreement with the threat of charges pertaining to working as an unregistered foreign lobbyist.

“I was faced with a choice: accept the charges that I lied or face FARA charges,” he said. “I made a deal. A deal forced on me.”

“My story is part of a larger story. The story of Trump and the story of stopping Trump, or trying to,” he added in the book. “The Trump presidency was the primary target of all this insanity.”