Papadopoulos’s wife wants him to scrap plea deal with Mueller: report

Simona Mangiante, the wife of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, says her husband should end his plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and refuse to cooperate further with its investigation.

Mangiante told MSNBC on Thursday that her faith in Mueller’s investigation has wavered, and that new evidence in the case made it necessary for her husband to end his agreement with the special counsel’s office.

“I trusted the institutions until they proved me wrong,” Mangiante told MSNBC, adding that she had been made aware of “exculpatory evidences that fully justify him to drop off his plea agreement.”

There were “shady individuals targeting George with a specific agenda” during the campaign, she added, though it was not clear to whom she was referring.

EXCLUSIVE: George Papadopoulos’s wife, Simona Mangiante, tells #TheBeat she wants him to scrap the plea deal with Mueller pic.twitter.com/UkpT22RsmW

— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) August 16, 2018

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about his communications with Russians and a London professor. He agreed, at the time, to cooperate with Mueller’s ongoing investigation.

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The former Trump campaign aide is credited with sparking Mueller’s Russia probe with statements he made to Australian officials, which were later reported to the FBI. In those statements, Papadopoulos asserted that Russian agents had obtained thousands of emails that could be used to embarrass then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

It is unclear whether Papadopoulos would be able to alter his agreement at this time, as his sentencing is set for next month.

Prosecutors estimated in his plea agreement that he will likely serve up to six months in jail and face a fine between $500 to $9,500, provided that he isn’t found to have committed any more crimes. He is one of three former Trump campaign officials to plead guilty to lying to investigators, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and businessman Richard Gates.