The Manafort Indictment

Papadopoulos was just a 'coffee boy' who 'prefers a caramel macchiato,' says Trump campaign adviser

On Monday, we learned that President Trump's former campaign aide George Papadopoulos was arrested in July and charged with making false statements about his attempts to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton via a Russian contact. Papadopoulos has cooperated with federal officials since then, leading to speculation that he may have worn a wire.

On Tuesday, former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo argued on CNN that Papadopoulos' import on the campaign team has been wildly overblown. "He was the coffee boy! I mean, you might have called him a 'foreign policy analyst,'" Caputo told host Chris Cuomo, "but in fact, you know, if he was going to wear a wire, all we'd know now is whether he prefers a caramel macchiato over a regular American coffee in conversations with his barista. He had nothing to do with the campaign, and all this contact with Russians is something completely beyond the scope of his volunteer duties."

Papadopoulos was indeed only a volunteer, though Trump himself knew who he was — at least, enough to call him an "excellent guy" in a Washington Post interview — by March of 2016. Watch the interview clip below. Bonnie Kristian