Trump derided him Tuesday morning as a “liar” while former campaign aide Michael Caputo dismissed him as “the coffee boy.”
Press secretary Sarah Sanders went further Tuesday afternoon, claiming the White House and the campaign deserved credit for helping Mueller’s team build its case that Papadopoulos had lied to the FBI about his contacts.
“Papadopoulos is an example of actually somebody doing the wrong thing while the president's campaign did the right thing,” Sanders said. “All of his emails were voluntarily provided to the special counsel by the campaign, and that is what led to the process and the place that we’re in right now is the campaign fully cooperating and helping with that. What Papadopoulos did was lie and that’s on him and not on the campaign and we can’t speak to that.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about when the documents in question had been turned over. Papadopoulos was initially interviewed as part of the FBI’s probe into Russian election meddling on Jan. 27. He was arrested in July.
The Washington Post reports that Trump’s campaign handed over emails implicating Papadopoulos to the special counsel in August — after he had already been arrested.