NEW: George Papadopoulos, the Trump adviser jailed over Russia meddling probe, wants to run for Congress in 2020.
He tells me he is looking at seats in Orange County (Nixon’s birthplace) and is already taking to donors.
Full interview: t.co/bUmOuO6uyE
George Papadopoulos just got out of jail after serving time for lying to federal investigators. Now, the former Trump adviser has something new to say. Papadopoulos has confirmed that he is running for Congress, somewhere in Southern California and probably in Orange County. Papadopoulos made the announcement in an interview with the Daily Telegraph and later confirmed it on Twitter.
Papadopoulos spent just 12 days in federal prison in Oxford, Wisconsin this month. He was released from jail on December 7 and will now be on “supervised release” for 12 months. The former Trump aide also has to do 200 hours of community service and pay a fine of $9,500. Papadopoulos went to jail after admitting that he had lied to federal investigators about his relationship with people connected to Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
In spite of his sentence, Papadopoulos and his wife, Simona Mangiante, have maintained a high profile, doing the talk show circuit and taking advantage of social media. Papapdopoulos also wrote a book, Deep State Target, about “the attempted sabotage of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by American and international intelligence services.”
Now, Papadopoulos says he’s going to run for Congress — and win.
Papadopoulos Says He Always Intended to Run for Office & That’s Why He Went to Work for Trump
In the Telegraph interview, Papadopoulos — wearing a dark suit and standing in front of palm trees — says that his “end game” was always to run for political office. He says that’s the reason he went to work for the Trump campaign in the first place. “Things took a different direction,” Papadopoulos says, smiling wryly. But, he says, “My end game remains the same. I do want to run for Congress. I’m planning on running for Congress in 2020. And now that Los Angeles is home, I just have to find a little Republican enclave in this part of the world, in this part of the country, and run there. And I have some support already.”
Later in the day, Papadopoulos tweeted, “It is true. I will be running for Congress in 2020, and I will win. Stay tuned.”