As the months drag on, more and more pieces of the Donald Trump Russian collusion puzzle come together. Former Trump aide George Papadopoulos has now provided another piece of that puzzle via his legal team, which filed a 16-page defense memo on his behalf late Friday. According to the memo, Papadopoulos has confirmed that when he raised the possibility of a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a March 2016 meeting, Trump readily got on board with the idea.
‘While some in the room rebuffed George’s offer, Mr. Trump nodded with approval and deferred to Mr. [Jeff] Sessions who appeared to like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into it.’
The meeting at which Papadopoulos offered to try and set up a Trump-Putin meeting has already figured prominently. Jeff Sessions, who was at the time a U.S. Senator from Alabama and is now the U.S. Attorney General, claimed at one point to have had no knowledge of attempted or completed Trump campaign contacts with Russia — until he did. Proving himself an unreliable witness, he ignored the events of the March 2016 meeting until they appeared in the press.
Throughout the duration of the Russia scandal, Trump has rebuffed both Sessions and Papadopoulos. Sessions recused himself in the aftermath of the revelation of his own Russia contacts, and Trump has suggested that the former Senator came into office with a pre-planned scheme to withdraw from the Russia investigation, which he’s lambasted him for. Trump wants the whole thing to go away, no matter the cost.
To that end, he’s sought to discredit Papadopoulos’ role in his campaign. On October 31, 2017, on Twitter, he angrily wrote:
‘Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar.’
In reality, in addition to the March 2016 meeting including Donald Trump himself that he’s known to have participated in, he maintained foreign contacts for the campaign. His efforts at times incorporated a Russian news agency and Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, who presented an energy cooperation proposal with the new Trump administration.
None of those contacts constituted any activity for which Papadopoulos has so far faced legal consequences. He’s been nabbed, in contrast, for lying to the FBI, misrepresenting the timing of his communications with Professor Joseph Mifsud, who revealed to him in early 2016 that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.
In the aforementioned Friday court filing, he asked for probation instead of a jail sentence.
His legal team wrote:
‘George Papadopoulos is now a convicted felon. When it came to make a good decision he made a bad one. His arrest and prosecution served as notice to all involved that this was a serious investigation. He was the first domino, and many have fallen in behind. Despite the gravity of his offense, it is important to remember what Special Counsel said at George’s plea of guilty: he was just a small part of a large-scale investigation.’
That “large scale investigation” is what keeps President Donald Trump so endlessly paranoid.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
