Former US Attorney reveals Papadopoulos gave Mueller four people to be investigated as part of his guilty plea

Appearing on MSNBC, a former U.S. attorney said that it appears that former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos gave special counsel Robert Mueller the names of four people who may now be under investigation -- or cooperating with the FBI--  as part of his guilty plea.

Speaking with host Alex Witt, ex-U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said the former Trump advisor may be a "small fish" in Trump's world, but that he wouldn't have received the plea deal his lawyers got from Mueller without giving up valuable information -- including names linked to Trump.

"He is now cooperating with Mueller's probe," Witt remarked. "It's part of his plea deal. Is it likely at this point that Mueller has gathered a lot more information from Papadopoulos than we are aware of at this point?"

"I think that's highly likely," McQuade began. "I know that President Trump and others want to minimize his role in the campaign, and no doubt he is a small fish -- that's how the strategy typically works. But what we can safely conclude is that Mueller's team gave him a plea deal, and they would only do that because they believed they were receiving something of value that could be information about others."

"If you look at that statement of the offense that was filed in connection with the plea agreement, he identifies four other officials with whom he communicated about this, but not by name but by title," she highlighted. " He, I'm sure, told the team who those people were, and those people are now either subjects of interview or subjects of the investigation."

"In addition, I think it's quite possible -- and Robert Mueller said this in his motion to seal the documents -- they wanted to explore proactive cooperation," she continued. "That typically means that the person will wear a wire in conversations with other people in hopes of collecting information or recording phone calls. So it may be that any of those things have panned out and Robert Mueller has already gained that information."

Watch  the video below via MSNBC: