Ex-Trump campaign aide says FBI wanted him to wear a wire

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Trump campaign aide at the center of the early days of the FBI’s Russia investigation says the FBI wanted him to wear a wire.

George Papadopoulos told lawmakers in a closed-door interview last October that agents wanted him to record conversations with a professor who told him the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos says he rejected the request.

A transcript of his interview was released Tuesday by the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee as part of an effort to sow doubt about the origins of the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos is among six Trump campaign aides charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which ended last week. Attorney General William Barr says Mueller did not find collusion.