What does George Papadopoulos think he’s doing now?

| 8:08 pm EDT September 1, 2018
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After several days of public hints about ripping up his plea deal and taking his chances at trial, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos decided to do the smart thing by sticking with the deal after all. This isn’t particularly surprising, as the message must have gotten through to him that he’s only facing six months in prison (or less) under the deal, while a trial could have sent him away for much longer. That said, his court filing for the sentencing hearing does have some surprises in it.

For instance, George Papadopoulos is now revealing in his court filing that when he told Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions about his plan to set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin during the campaign, they signed off on it. This helps incriminate Trump in a roundabout way, within the overall context of the Trump-Russia scandal. But it directly incriminates Sessions for lying to Congress, just hours after we saw the first Trump-Russia player, Samuel Patten, popped for lying to Congress as part of a case which resulted in a plea deal.

So what’s really happening here? Keep in mind that Papadopoulos spilled his guts to Mueller more than a year ago, so nothing in this court filing is news to him. The question is why it’s coming out now. Did Mueller tell Papadopoulos to reveal this now, because he’s ready to start moving against those who have lied to Congress? Did Papadopoulos take one look at the Patten case and decide to slip this into his court filing, in the hope of impressing the judge? Is Papadopoulos trying to sabotage Sessions in order to impress Trump, in a feeble play for a pardon?

I don’t know. We do have one additional piece of the puzzle. The court filing from George Papadopoulos also says that he lied to the FBI because he was trying to “preserve a perhaps misguided loyalty to his master.” He’s clearly referring to Donald Trump here. But is this an attempt at convincing the judge that it was all Trump’s fault, or is he trying to convince Trump that he’s been loyal? No pardon is coming. Trump wouldn’t take the risk on someone he doesn’t care about. But does Papadopoulos know that? I’ll admit, I can’t wrap my head around this one at the moment.