Why Was George Papadopoulos Bitching about the UK While Working on His Presentencing Report?
The government and the lawyers for George Papadopoulos have a joint status report due on Friday. That means the lawyers are all, surely, in communication right now. Probably, Papadopoulos has already seen a draft if not the final of his presentencing report, which among other things, will talk about whether he met the terms of his plea deal. The plea deal, unlike virtually all the others we know Mueller’s team to have signed, included a list of people Papadopoulos was not permitted to contact.
That’s why I find this tweet from Papadopoulos, which TCleveland4Real caught on Twitter, to be so interesting.
TCleveland4Real noted two more things: first, this seems to be an allusion to “perfidious Albion,” the notion that the UK will sell you out in international diplomacy and spying. Perfidious Albion has also been used, repeatedly, to discuss Brexit. And shortly after TCleveland4Real noted it, Papadopoulos deleted the Tweet.
Perhaps this is all utterly unrelated to the filings that will determine whether Papadopoulos does prison time this week. But I sure do wonder whether this curse about Great Britain pertained to what he’s looking at, or even if this tweet was meant as some kind of signal to others.
Update: Here’s the release conditions language he would have violated if he compared notes with others about talking to Stefan Halper.
And he was directed not to have any contact, direct or indirect, with individuals relating to the campaign or to any of the conduct set forth in the complaint. The Government provided a list of those individuals to the Defendant and defense counsel.
Arguably, even Simona asking for a pardon constitutes indirect communication with an individual relating to the campaign, given that only Trump could be the audience for that.
Update, 9/1/18: I realize that Papadopoulos couldn’t have been reviewing his PSR. That only got done on August 1. So something else made him realize he was screwed.
The wiki world is given to repeating the phrase, “anglobphobic pejorative” in its various entries relating to “perfidious Albion.” It’s the sort of thing an Oxbridge Brit would come up with. It is overbroad, pedantic, and francophobe, in an academic tit-for-tat sort of way.
Apart from its use as a disdainful reference to British diplomatic practice – a description the colonial and Arab worlds would find appropriate, as would the France of de Gaulle and his medieval predecessors, and not a few people in Ireland and Scotland – the phrase is the title for at least one book and is used in video gaming, just for starters. It was more common in the angry young men 1950s and pre-EC entry 1960s. The Irish of the Troubles used earthier descriptions.
None of those references is positive. But apart from anglophiles, ironically, it is not a phrase that frequently trips off the tongue of the casual student of England.
George did get into trouble in the UK, apparently drinking with a strangely interested Australian ambassador/high commissioner and that GOP/CIA professor and his aide. Perhaps he feels the Brits set him up.
But as you say, and as would be consistent with the other questionable characters Trump assembled for his 2016 campaign, perhaps he’s using it as a code to stay in touch with his Russian-affiliated contacts. Bob Mueller might not find that to be a good thing.
Perfidious Australis (Terra)? Facing six weeks inside, George was maybe feeling a bit down-er. Of course the content of that little bar room chat was shared with the Brits well before the Yanks were informed. Did that piss him off . . somehow?
PS- common knowledge that Alexander can drink most anyone “under the table”. Poor Papa never had a chance.
It’s also common in diplomatic circles to make one drink last an entire evening, while making it appear to be several. But yes, stereotypically speaking, I would bet on the Aussie over any American or Brit.
Maybe the brits sold his ass out for communications that broke his plea deal. Could explain why his
RussianItalian girlfriend is begging for a pardonWife, which changes the dynamic.
I married a Honeypot, by I.R. Dumas
In early May 2016 GeoPapa was quoted in the Times rebuking David Cameron for Cameron’s much earlier criticism of Trump comments about a Muslim ban.
Perhaps Papa has worked this into an Albion inspired deep state conspiracy against him, and by extension Space Force C-in -C, all the better to gain a pardon as victim of foriegn intelligence ops by AngloAntiTrumpers.
Focusing on the Brits for being anti-Trump would be like picking one strand of hay out of a haystack. The world is full of the anti-Trump. It is also full of rising neo-fascists, Farage, le Pen, and Wilders among them.
Papa might want a pardon, but given that he’s already cooperated, why would he need one? Why would the intensely self-interested Trump extend it? If he does get one, I would expect Mueller to have considerably renewed interest in having long chats with him. It would mean his people missed something spectacular. (And the pardon would remove most excuses that would allow Papa to stay mum.)
Best guess- some Trumphumper slipped her 50g to provide some “interesting” anti- Mueller (scripted) content. Money’s too tight (to mention)!
None of the George&Simona roadshow has made much sense.
But she(they) has been quite active participants in generating the spygate counter narrative; perhaps their hopes are 1 to gain a pardon at some future point and 2 to that end they try to stack up some points on their TrumpLoyalty card.
OTOH
The perfidious Alb… might be a Baggies reference. Papa doesn’ t strike me as an obvious Wolves fan, but anything is possible.
Senator Wyden, do not be snowed.
Hope you are baiting CongressCritters.
Just because they say they are cutting out the cut-outs (third party data aggregators), does not mean the problem does not remain.
Seriously, where is the proof?
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/following-wydens-investigation-verizon-pledges-to-end-contracts-with-companies-that-sell-americans-location-
I’ll be clear, here in comments. I suspect the Brits told Mueller about him breaking the terms of his plea deal and that’s reflected on the Mueller recommendation for sentencing.
Ah! Mama Papa should have hired a Kardashian or Rambo to do the begging. Lock him up! (Guess he’s been caught out backing up his whatsapp thingy’s?)
Any speculation/suspicion as to what, exactly, he did?
I suspect the Brits discovered he was violating the ban on whom he could talk to. Probably the people whom he compared notes with on the Stefan Halper story would be in his banned contact list, for example.
Also anybody at the London Centre for Obvious Front Activities. (Excluding Mifsud, though if Papa had managed to contact him, that would be a revelation.)
Explains the need for a pardon and hence Papa’s pleas for one. Explains the perfide Albion lament. The Brits caught Papa communicating with one or more people on Mueller’s Do Not Call list and got word to Mueller’s shop. Papa might be headed for a longer sentence.
That Papa and/or his likely contacts remained under surveillance was a dead cert. So Papa is not the brightest bulb in the pack either.
Given the likelihood of surveillance, it is possible the Americans found out about it directly. Saying word came from the Brits might be a form of parallel construction that distracts Papa and his handlers from the real or other source of this information.
EW keeps pointing out that the encrypted apps have been sort of transparent from Mueller’s perspective. Caputo, Stone and Pap are all stirred.
Well, my ship’s rugby squad drank the Western Suburbs (Perth) clubhouse dry after our match (we lost, duh), but we had three guys standing (myself included) and they had only one, so we won the party. USA, USA, USA!!!! We kept the wives and kids around for about an hour or so, and then it was time for competitive drinking.
The Baggie reference by SteveB is to West Bromwich Albion (aka the Baggies), which would be remarkably obscure for an American even if they were a Premier League junkie. We might have heard of Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur (who are ancient and thorough rivals) but claiming that Papadopoulos knows about WBA (relegated from the EPL this past season) and Wolverhampton (just promoted to the EPL, so they will only have “friendlies” this next season) is pushing it. No doubt this reference was to May’s UK government, and it is a common opinion.
@emptywheel
That would certainly fit. Any speculation about what the communications might be? Having his wife go out and grovel for a pardon would go along with him looking at more prison time than he was expecting. I still think it was a breathtakingly stupid thing to do. But then I was gobsmacked when Gates got busting for lying during his proffer, too. These people really don’t seem to be terribly good at following legal advice.
Papadopoulos had to have served as an indirect source for the series of Chuck Ross stories that outed Stefan Halper. And for the Trump people to have put that together, he probably had to have indirect contact with Sam Clovis and maybe Carter Page.
Chuck Rossier has been awfully cocky, so I suspected he had a pipeline directly to the principals. I think you’re probably right about this. Papadope feels like he got set up to take the fall, and someone has convinced him to blame the wrong guys.
I just find it hilarious that Rossier hasn’t seemed to notice that Papadope isn’t in the dossier. Or he’s just too big a hack to care
The calculus is now changing daily for anyone who is trying to decide between cooperating and possibly doing some time, or holding out for a pardon from Trump, because Manafort is now stewing in jail with one hour of face-to-face visitation time per week. So he’s in a WORSE situation than doing time in a minimum security prison. And every day that Trump doesn’t pardon him is another day that everyone else will hope less and less for a pardon if Mueller decides to go after them.
That’s true. And the closer Mueller gets to Trump and his family, the higher the value of information a flipper has to come up with to get a sweetheart deal. Mikey should not take so long to find his new lawyers.
Marcy, what are your thoughts on this? Will they be so brazen? Is this part of the reason they are allowing, even encouraging, outrage and focus on the separately detained immigrant children, to cause outrage exhaustion, if you will?
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: Republicans plan on ‘firing’ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein ‘on Friday’
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) on Tuesday asserted in a congressional hearing that Republicans have a plan to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “on Friday” of this week…
House GOP chairmen and Ryan demanding Rosenstein fully comply with Goodlatte’s March subpoena for records on Clinton probe, Clinton Foundation, firing of McCabe and FISA docs on Carter Page and Trump associates in Russia inquiry, I’m told. Rosenstein given til Friday to comply
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 18, 2018
….Republicans in Congress, however, do not have the power to fire Rosenstein. According to Justice Department rules, the president would have to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire the deputy attorney general.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/rep-sheila-jackson-lee-republicans-plan-firing-deputy-ag-rod-rosenstein-friday/
Sorry @earl, I thought your comment was Marcy’s.
Can we just take a moment to marvel that there was in fact one literate person in this White House?