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.