to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired."

What remains unclear from the Times report is why the Australians waited two months to alert the FBI (the Australian Embassy in D.C. declined to comment) and whether Papadopoulos alerted other members of the Trump campaign when he was told that Russians were in possession of "thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton." While the documents obtained by the Times "show no evidence that Mr. Papadopoulos discussed the stolen messages with the campaign," the paper points out that it was mere weeks before "he opened up to Mr. Downer, the Australian diplomat, about his contacts with the Russians."

After news broke earlier this year that Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was reportedlycooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is now leading the investigation into allegations of collusion, the president and those around him tried to downplay the influence of the former foreign policy adviser, with Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo even dismissing him as a "coffee boy."

"He was hardly central to the daily running of the Trump campaign, yet Mr. Papadopoulos continuously found ways to make himself useful to senior Trump advisers," and "interviews and new documents show that he stayed influential throughout the campaign," the Times notes. "Two months before the election, for instance, he helped arrange a New York meeting between Mr. Trump and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt."

So far, Mueller has charged four former Trump officials, including Papadopoulos: in October, Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort