Mueller seeks 6 months in jail for former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is seeking a short prison sentence of up to six months for former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who allegedly delayed federal investigators by lying to them.

"[Papadopoulos'] lies undermined investigators' ability to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States," Mueller's team said in court filings Friday. "The defendant's false statements were intended to harm the investigation, and did so."

The "Professor" in question is Joseph Mifsud, who reportedly has ties to the Russian government and contacted Papadopoulos offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying about Mifsud to the FBI in October.

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Papadopoulos and his attorney could not be reached by Wall Street Journal requests to comment on the possible jail time, but Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, George's wife, has been publicly asking President Trump to pardon him.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.