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George Papadopoulos' fiancée opens up about her FBI interview, that mysterious London professor, and her wedding plans

Simona Mangiante, the fiancée of former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, spoke to Business Insider.

  • Simona Mangiante, the fiancée of former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, described in an interview with Business Insider this week what her life has been like since Papadopoulos was arrested and put on house arrest last July.
  • Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russia-linked professor, and Mangiante soon found herself in Mueller's crosshairs, too.
  • Mangiante says she and Papadopoulos are trying to keep their relationship as normal as possible, and are planning an engagement party later this year.

Simona Mangiante says her fiancé, George Papadopoulos, is staying positive.

Mangiante and Papadopoulos first met in person in New York in April 2017, she said, about seven months after they first started chatting on LinkedIn. They traveled to Europe that summer for a whirlwind vacation and parted ways in late July, with Mangiante staying in Italy and Papadopoulos heading back to the US.

"We had traveled to Mykonos, to Athens, and to Capri," Mangiante said. "He had finished his work for the campaign and I had left my job at the European Parliament. We spent every second together."

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Papadopoulos texted Mangiante when he landed at Dulles airport in Washington, DC on July 27 — minutes before he was arrested by the FBI. By the time he emerged from his Alexandria jail cell on July 28, Papadopoulos

"It was traumatic, and completely unexpected," Mangiante said. Papadopoulos's cousin wrote to her on Facebook in the interim, explaining that he had been arrested.

"I didn't know what was going on," Mangiante said. "So I went to the US, and everything changed completely."

Mangiante flew to Chicago to see Papadopoulos and was promptly served with a subpoena by a federal agent working for special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is investigating potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and had charged Papadopoulos with lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia-linked foreign nationals during the election. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to the charge.

Mangiante left the organization in November 2016. By that point, she had already begun chatting with Papadopoulos, who had messaged her on LinkedIn two months earlier after seeing that they shared a mutual professional connection — Mifsud.

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"How do you know him?" Mangiante said Papadopoulos asked her at the time, referring to Mifsud. "What does he do?"

"Not even George really knew anything about him," Mangiante said.

Mifsud came under renewed scrutiny last weekend, when The New York Times reported that Papadopoulos drunkenly told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 — one month after meeting with Mifsud — that Russia had dirt on Clinton.

The diplomat relayed the details of his conversation with Papadopoulos to Australian government officials, who in turn relayed it to the US government shortly after news surfaced that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked. Papadopoulos' inadvertent disclosure, combined with the massive data breach, is what triggered the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.

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Before it was scrubbed, Mifsud's London Centre biography said he had "lectured extensively throughout the world," "worked in a number of universities," "attended and chaired conferences" and "organized major ministerial and institutional meetings on pan-Mediterranean dialogue." He also worked for the government of Malta, where he is from.

Mifsud has been filmed speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club, a think tank based in the Russian city of Veliky Novgorod that is close to President Vladimir Putin andhosts him every year for a keynote address. Mifsud also wrote three pro-Russia articles that are featured on Valdai's website.

Beyond that, not much is known. In November, Mifsud disappeared from the

The Trump campaign was quick to downplay Papadopoulos' role on the campaign following his guilty plea, describing him as a "coffee boy" who played no meaningful foreign policy role — a claim at which Mangiante bristles.

"They're just undermining all of George's efforts. He even helped to organize a meeting between Trump and [Egyptian President Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi through a connection he had at the Egyptian embassy."

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Papadopoulos represented the campaign at numerous points during the election. He

Asked why she thought Papadopoulos told the Australian diplomat about Russia's Clinton dirt, or what he may have meant by it, Mangiante said she couldn't say with certainty.

"I was not there," she said. "But they clearly had had many drinks."

Mangiante reiterated that she and Papadopoulos had nothing to hide and were looking to the future. Right now, for example, they're busy planning their wedding.

Papadopoulos proposed at the end of September, about a year after he sent her that first LinkedIn message.

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