‘The View’ grills Papadopoulos over Trump campaign work: ‘Did they set you up?’

Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos said Tuesday that his encounter with a London-based professor who suggested a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was “suspicious.”

Papadopoulos, appearing on ABC’s “The View,” noted that he didn’t have any prior experience in U.S.-Russia relations before joining the campaign, prompting host Whoopi Goldberg to ask whether the campaign set him up.

{mosads}He then said that after he applied to work on Trump’s campaign, his employer at the time — the London Center of International Law Practice — sent him to Rome, where he encountered the professor, Joseph Mifsud.

Papadopoulos said that he had never heard of Mifsud before meeting him. Mifsud told him he could organize a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“It was suspicious,” he said. “I don’t know if it was pre-planned or what-not, but it was very interesting.”

Papadopoulos said the idea behind the proposed meeting “was for some sort of photo-op.” He added that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was “quite enthusiastic” about the potential meeting, doubling down on a claim he made during an interview Friday on CNN.

Sessions and the Trump administration have maintained that Sessions pushed back against the suggested meeting.

Papadopoulos also said earlier this month that Trump “nodded with approval” when he suggested setting up a meeting between Trump and Putin.

Papadopoulos was sentenced last week to 14 days in prison and one year supervised release for lying to investigators about his contacts with Russia-linked individuals during the 2016 presidential campaign.