You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service.

This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

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Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today has a unique perspective on the news that Special Counsel Robert

Mueller found no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians during the 2016

US presidential election. George Papadopoulos has already paid a price for his involvement

in the highly complex and murky story of that campaign

and those allegations of Russian dirty tricks. Three years ago, Papadopoulos was a 28-year-old

wannabe political operative. He talked his way into a voluntary position on the Trump campaign's

foreign affairs team. He ended up in London, having a meeting with a Maltese

academic believed to have ties to the Russian government. He was told of a Moscow-initiated

dirty tricks campaign aimed at Hillary Clinton. On its face, the Poppodopoulos story, which ended up

with him convicted and briefly imprisoned for lying to

the FBI, has always sounded like an outlandish Hollywood script. But in truth, the Papadopoulos

affair prompted an investigation which led directly to the entire Mueller probe. So now that

Mueller's report is in and President Trump is claiming exoneration,

what are we to make of George Papadopoulos? Well, he joins me now on the line from New York City.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you, Stephen. You have had a few hours now to digest the news of the headlines that come out of the special counsel's report, as reported by the U.S. Attorney General.

You have a unique perspective on this, so give me your initial response.

My initial response is that I feel quite vindicated, actually. I'd like to echo the president's

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