Russia-linked lobbyist pleads guilty, will cooperate with Mueller probe

A lobbyist named W. Samuel Patten on Friday pleaded guilty to working as an unregistered foreign agent and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators including Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Patten admitted to lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee and spending $50,000 on four tickets to President Trump's inauguration on behalf of a Ukrainian oligarch though he knew the inaugural committee cannot accept funds from foreign nationals.

Patten is linked to Konstantin Kilimnik, an aide to former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort who is reportedly tied to Russian intelligence and has been indicted by the Mueller probe.

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President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, dismissed Patten's plea as inconsequential to his client. "It turned about to be this irrelevant indictment, where I think Mueller has turned out to be a private prosecutor," he said. "What does this have to do with President Trump? Not a single thing. It has nothing to do with collusion, some guy who donated to the inauguration? My goodness, they had 500,000 people donate to the inauguration — every time they get a speeding ticket is Mueller going to do it?"

Also Friday, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, asked for a lenient sentence in a court filing that described Trump approving of a potential meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the spring of 2016.