George Papadopoulos 14 day prison sentence has opened the floodgates for Donald Trump’s people to sell him out
George Papadopoulos was about to walk into his sentencing hearing today and then disappear into a prison cell for six months, so he tried a Hail Mary. He had his lawyers directly accuse Donald Trump of being the real obstructor of justice, and sure enough, the judge responded by giving him a mere fourteen day prison sentence. It opened the floodgates for Trump’s own people to seek lenient sentences by selling him out as thoroughly as possible, and sure enough, his people are already looking at rushing through that gate.
Papadopoulos screwed up his plea deal agreement in too many ways to count, from continuing to lie to investigators, to failing to turn over a phone. But even after all of those mistakes, and Robert Mueller’s decision to recommend a six month sentence, the judge is virtually letting Papadopoulos walk – apparently just because he accused Trump of being a criminal in court.
Does this mean that Trump’s other advisers are now assured of more lenient sentences if they do the same? No. But it means they’ll be tempted to try. Sure enough, just hours after Papadopoulos got his light sentence, reports surfaced that Paul Manafort is now seriously negotiating a plea deal. Manafort is currently looking at decades in prison for his crimes, so there’s no way he’s getting a fourteen day sentence. But would Mueller be willing to give him something like three years? We’ll see. In any case, the Papadopoulos news may have the greatest impact on Trump’s White House advisers.
So many of Donald Trump’s current and former White House advisers are accused of having conspired with him to commit felony obstruction of justice, we’ve lost count. They’re all looking at the possibility of fairly significant prison time. But if they have a clean past like Papadopoulos, as opposed to being career criminals like Manafort, they too might stand a chance of cutting a plea deal against Trump and then convincing a judge to give them a laughably short prison sentence. Let the plea deal games begin.
