George Papadopoulos’ wife hits the panic button ahead of his Trump-Russia sentencing

| 6:04 pm EDT August 16, 2018
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Earlier this week we learned from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s court filings that former Donald Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos will be sentenced on September 7th, after having already cut a plea deal a little more than a year ago. Papadopoulos could be looking at anything from time served to six months behind bars. Now that the prospect of prison is setting in, Papadopoulos’s wife is hitting the panic button.

Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos posted this urgent message on her Twitter account on Wednesday: “Attorney wanted for [George Papadopoulos], Pro Bono! Your biggest reward will be History. Your name will go down on history.” She then told pro-Trump propaganda site Daily Caller that she believes her husband should renege on his plea deal. Presumably she wants him to fight the charges at trial. The trouble: he’d be facing several years in prison, and because of how he’s handled things up to this point, he’d be all but guaranteed to lose at trial.

Here’s what a competent attorney would tell Simona Papadopoulos about her husband. Because he agreed to cooperate, he was only charged with the comparatively minor crime of lying to the FBI. If he were to renege on his deal, he would then be charged with serious crimes along the lines of conspiracy against the United States. Moreover, he’s already confessed to these crimes, because that’s the first thing that transpires once you cut a plea deal. Robert Mueller could simply use Papadopoulos’ own words to convict him. The odds of any lawyer being able to get that confession thrown out would be remote at best.

It’s understandable by Simona Papadopoulos is latching onto the last-minute idea that George Papadopoulos should try to avoid going to prison for a few months. But the reality is that if she were to talk her husband into doing this, she’d be unwittingly sending him to prison for much of the rest of his life. Even if he were to renege, Robert Mueller has surely already used his testimony to build criminal cases against other Trump campaign officials, and he probably wouldn’t miss a beat.