George Papadopoulos. Not a name anyone in the world knew 2 weeks ago. Now the guy who might bring down the presidency of Donald Trump.
Now before we get started lets explain one thing about Impeachment: Namely that it doesnt actually require a crime (despite what you will hear people on both sides claim). Articles of Impeachment were drawn up against Richard Nixon, who resigned before they could be voted on.....but to this day Nixon has yet to be proven to have committed a crime. Weve also has successful impeachments and removals of federal officials for Drunkenness, and Political Bias. And weve declared behaviors abouse of power or corruption simply because they defied any other label.
So while crimes are helpful, they arnt really necessary for impeachment, it a political maneuver.
Which is the biggest problem for Trump and the reason Papadopoulos might be the one to lead to his downfall, even if no direct chain from Papadopoulos to Trump ever surfaces. Because at the end of the day, Impeachment is a political, not legal device. So like Nixon before him....Trump could go down from the sheer weight of the corruption around him. And well Papadopoulos delivered a ton of that.
Ok so, for those unfamiliar Papadopoulos was a mid level Trump staffer, who got an offer from what he believed to be the Russian government who wanted a meeting with Trump in exchange for dirt on Hillary....and Papadopoulos tried to take them up on it. This is of course illegal, but on its own, just one corrupt staffer.
Except that Papadopoulos went up the chain and pitched the idea to a LOT of people. One of whom was Paul Manafort, who was just indicted.
Ironically though, it wasnt Papadopoulos that brought down Manafort. In fact it may be the other way around.
On July 26th Manafort's home was raided by the FBI and documents pertaining to the campaign were taken.
On July 27th Papadopoulos was arrested for having previously lied to to FBI in his initial interviews in January.
Now to be clear, I have no idea how the FBI discovered her was lying, but just based on those dates, it seems highly likely they found Paul Manafort's end of the emails between the two of them....and could use those to force the truth out of Papadopoulos.
But this isnt the end of the story. First Papadopoulos did what anyone trying to save their ass might do when caught in a lie that would put them in jail.....he flipped. And the thing is, no one knew about it for months, even his arrest wasnt known.
So for 3 months, he filtered in and out of Trump world (presumably with a wire), and took everything he found to the Special Prosecutor. And as of now, we have no idea what he found and who its going to lead too.
Though its clear given his arrest was made public that Mueller is done with him, and got as much as he thinks he can out of him. One of those things appears to have been Sam Clovis, who until earlier this week (when the Papadopoulos arrest was made public) was Donald Trump's nominee to be the Chief Scientist at the USDA (despite not in any respect being a scientist).
The reason of course he's no longer the nominee is he was one of those guys Papadopoulos emailed about the meeting, and his reaction was to encourage Papadopoulos to take it.
But it doesnt end there for Clovis or Trump. See unbeknownst to the very White House that was nominating him for a position in their government, Clovis had testified in front of Mueller Grand Jury at some point in the last few months, and like Papadopoulos' appears to have flipped and is now a cooperating witness for the Senate and Mueller's investigations.
And like Papadopoulos' we dont know much Clovis has given those investigations, or long he's been giving them information, or where it will lead.
But Clovis isnt the only person who we've already been able to connect back to Papadopoulos, and the next one is YUGE.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is apparently another higher up messaged by Papadopoulos about the meeting. Now to Sessions credit by all accounts he shut the idea down and refused to go along with it in any way. Which normally would be a great thing......except for this:
SEN. AL FRANKEN: "If there was any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this (2016) campaign, what would you do?,"
SESSIONS: "I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."
Thats a transcript of Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings when he was being nominated to be the attorney general. And well, he clearly clearly clearly clearly lied, as he knew about Papadopoulos.
Actually to be honest, thats not the only trouble that exchange has made for Sessions. The reason he was forced to recuse himself from the russian investigation is because he had had several meetings himself with Russian Officials, that obviously dont match up with his claim in that statement, and he was forced to amend the statement later, but still neglected to mention Papadopoulos
So this is now the second time he got caught lying under oath about connections to Russia.
And by second, I mean 3rd. Remember the name Carter Page? He was a mid level Trump staffer that got a ton of attention early on in the investigation because Russia attempted to recruit him as a spy?
Turns out he also is claiming he notified Jeff Sessions about his plans to travel to Russia and give a speech during the campaign. Furthermore, like Sessions and Clovis, he's also claiming to have been on the Papadopoulos email list about the Russian meeting. (and he's claiming he has names of others who were as well, but wont make them public, but is cooperating with Mueller)
Basically, between the previous lies, Page and Papadopoulos, Sessions appears to be in deep deep shit (as in could be forced to resign) here, as its undisputed at this point he lied left right and center about his knowledge of campaign officials communications with Russia.
Which is odd, since he appears to have done nothing wrong as far as actually handling those communications and dismissing and discouraging them. So the only real justification that makes sense as to why he lied was to protect his boss, Donald Trump, and he knew any communications legal or otherwise would be super scrutinized.
Speaking of Trump though, the major question is did he know about any of this?
And according to Papadopoulos, the answer is yes.....sorta.
Papadopoulos' claims he directly pitched the idea of a Trump/Russia meeting to Trump, however didnt mention the quid pro quo of the damaging Hillary info.
Now in and of itself, Trump deciding to meet with a foreign leader as candidate isnt illegal. So in theory if he didnt know about the Quid Pro Quo he's fine legally.
But maybe not politically. After all enough Nixon advisers went down over Watergate that no one believes its possible Nixon didnt know about it, despite no evidence to support that.
Trump's ex campaign manager is already indicted (Manafort), as was his Lieutenant Rick Gates (who was still working on behalf of Trump Adviser Tom Barrack, as part of the White House staff as late as June (possibly unbeknownst to Trump)). Carter Page, part of Trump's foreign policy team now seems deeply connected to this, as does [obviously] George Papadopoulos, another member of the foreign policy team who already has a guilty plea on the record. Trump's also already lost one nominee, Sam Clovis to previously unknown russian connections, and its not unreasonable anymore to say he might even lose his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions as well.
That's a lot of people, and there will be more, for any president to lose for a single scandal.
And keep in mind, this is only one "branch" of this particular scandal.
We also, have the Mike Flynn side of this, after Flynn was forced out as National Security Adviser over Russian Connections,
And we have the Trump Jr/ Kushner/ Manafort meeting with a Russian Lawyer in Trump tower.
And the Nexus point of all of this, Donald Trump's decision to fire James Comey.
For those who forgot, Comey was investigating Mike Flynn at the time Donald Trump fired him. Trump claims he fired him on the advice of Jeff Sessions (who as we just found out has been lying about his own Russian connections and knowledge of it) and Jared Kushner (who connects into the Russian Lawyer side of this, as does the indicted Manafort) possibly as a way to stop the Russian investigation (that again everyone who advised him is now directly caught up in)
And if it turns out everyone else involved in the decision to fire Comey was corrupt, will anyone believe that Trump wasnt? I dont think so.
And one last point.....we could see the walls start to close in much much faster very soon, as by all accounts Mueller has enough evidence to indict Mike Flynn and his son (likely over the things I detailed in a blog post a few months ago, read it here)
So in the next few days we are going to see more and more and more and more connections between Trump officials and Russia coming up as a second branch of this investigation comes to light, and this branch could lead to the Vice President (as Trump Transition team members apparently sent warning about Flynn to Trump and the team was headed by Pence....making it unlikely he didnt know)
So we are left with a question.....how many people close to Trump can fall before it becomes politically unlikely he didnt know about at least some if not all of it? And I think we are soon to cross that line....and it will be because of what started with Papadopoulos.
