By CHAD DAY

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign adviser who triggered the Russia investigation, told a judge Friday that he was “deeply embarrassed and ashamed” for lying to the FBI and acknowledged that his actions could have hindered their work.

“I made a dreadful mistake, but I am a good man who is eager for redemption,” Papadopoulos said at his sentencing hearing.

Papadopoulos has been sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI.

The sentence was imposed Friday in federal court in Washington.

He is the first former campaign aide to be sentenced in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign, has been a central figure in the Russia investigation dating back before Mueller’s May 2017 appointment. He was the first to plead guilty in Mueller’s probe and is now the first Trump campaign adviser to be sentenced. His case was also the first to detail a member of the Trump campaign having knowledge of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election while it was ongoing.

Memos authored by House Republicans and Democrats , now declassified, also show information about Papadopoulos’ contacts with Russian intermediaries triggered the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation in July 2016 into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. That probe was later taken over by Mueller.