Papadopoulos Had 'Blessing' to Contact World Leaders for Trump Campaign, Fiancee Says

Updated | George Papadopoulos had the Trump campaign's "blessing" when he "set up meetings with leaders all over the world," and he was far from the low-level volunteer or coffee boy that current administration officials have labeled him, according to his fiancee.

Simona Mangiante told ABC News in an interview that aired Friday that Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal officials about his contacts with people linked to Russia during last year's campaign, played an integral role in President Donald Trump's campaign and was "constantly in touch with high-level officials in the campaign."

"He never took any initiative, as far as I know, [that was] unauthorized. All the initiatives had [the] blessing of the campaign," Mangiante said.

She said Papadopoulos had direct contact with top campaign advisers Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, the latter of whom was also charged and pleaded guilty to lying to federal officials. Flynn is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mangiante also claimed to have seen "correspondence" that would back up the claim that Papadopoulos was in contact with Flynn and Bannon, though she said she was told by attorneys not to release the information to the media.

"First of all, I would love George to learn how to make a coffee, because it's absolutely out of his skills," she told ABC. "George is a remarkable young man with incredible experience in the field of energy and oil policies. This experience led him to get into the campaign and to advise the president at only 28 years old."

The Italian national Mangiante did also admit it's possible her fiance "didn't really realize what was going on" as he made contacts with a professor who was allegedly tied to the Kremlin.

Mangiante's description stands in stark contrast to that of the president and of multiple White House officials. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Papadopoulos was a "low-level volunteer" for the campaign, and Trump took to Twitter the day after Papadopoulos's guilty plea to blast his campaign credentials.

"Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!" Trump posted.

Trump first publicly named his campaign's foreign policy team in March 2016, when he spoke to The Washington Post's editorial board. During that interview, he called Papadopoulos an "excellent guy."

Papadopoulos was part of a foreign policy team meeting that included candidate Trump and Jeff Sessions, who was then a U.S. senator and later became the attorney general.

Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee last month that he could not completely recall the details of a March 2016 meeting in which Papadopoulos supposedly proposed a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I believe that I wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorized to represent the campaign with the Russian government, or any other foreign government, for that matter," Sessions said. "But I did not recall this event, which occurred 18 months before my testimony of a few weeks ago, and would gladly have reported it."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Simona Mangiante's last name.