Sen. Lindsey Graham

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Ah. The twists and turns inside the Beltway.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham told CNN on Monday that once Sen. John McCain was given the controversial Steele dossier, he encouraged McCain to forward it to the FBI, Axios reports. 

Those remarks come in wake of President Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks about McCain and the dossier.

Trump erroneously tweeted that McCain gave the report to the FBI during the campaign to try and sink him. The report was given in December, after the election.

“I understand that, clearly people are in the McCain world that did some things inappropriate but it was not John McCain,” Graham said. “John McCain did not give it to anybody in the press.”

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos is attempting to clear his name in his new book, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In “Deep State Target,” Papadopoulos writes in his interactions with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators  that he was duped by FBI agents into admitting guilt for lying to the FBI, a charge that he served 14 days in prison for, Talking Points Memo reports, citing the Journal story. 

“I realize I misspoke to the FBI,” he reportedly wrote. “The ‘lie’ I was charged with … certainly wasn’t intentional. …  I had to use those words and own them because those were the charges the prosecutors insisted on hitting me with. I am truly sorry I didn’t get the dates right when I talked to the FBI agents. Still, I was never told what my false claims were.”

Papadopoulos  pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a professor named Joseph Mifsud, who allegedly told him that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.