George Papadopoulos Is the First Crack in the Wall
And we already have a clue as to who the second will be.
History 'lesson'.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 31, 2017
Forty years ago next April, a defendant in a criminal trial wrote a letter to the judge handling his case. He and four others were facing a burglary rap and the judge had a well-deserved reputation for handing out stiff sentences.
The defendant wanted the judge to understand the pressures he was under, and also to understand that he had no intention of taking the rap alone. He wrote, in part:
"Be that as it may, in the interests of justice, and in the interests of restoring faith in the criminal justice system, which faith has been severely damaged in this case, I will state the following to you at this time which I hope may be of help to you in meting out justice in this case:
1. There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilty and remain silent.
2. Perjury occurred during the trial in matters highly material to the very structure, orientation, and impact of the government’s case, and to the motivation and intent of the defendants.
3. Others involved in the…operation were not identified during the trial, when they could have been by those testifying.
4. The…operation was not a CIA operation. The Cubans may have been misled by others into believing that it was a CIA operation. I know for a fact that it was not.
5. Some statements were unfortunately made by a witness which left the Court with the impression that he was stating untruths, or withholding facts of his knowledge, when in fact only honest errors of memory were involved.
6. My motivations were different than those of the others involved, but were not limited to, or simply those offered in my defense during the trial. This is no fault of my attorneys, but of the circumstances under which we had to prepare my defense."
The judge was John Sirica. The defendant was a security consultant named James McCord, who worked for the committee to re-elect President Richard Nixon. He went to jail. Ultimately, he did not go alone.
I mention this because it’s helpful to remind everyone that, in our current context, you really don’t know whence the first crack in the wall will come. McCord was the first crack in Watergate because he had no intention of carrying the full weight of other people’s crimes.
This is generally how it happens. (By contrast, the first break in Iran-Contra came from, of all places, a small Lebanese newspaper called al-Shiraa.)
It appears at the moment that the first break in the scandal of the moment may be the plea bargain struck in secret between special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and George Papadopoulos, the Trump foreign-policy adviser who the White House now insists was a part-time maintenance man at the State Department or something.
The release of the Papadopoulos plea deal was brilliant politics. Mueller plainly understood that, had he announced only the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the White House could’ve sluffed it off as old news that did not touch on the Russian ratfcking that is Mueller’s primary assignment.
The release of the Papadopoulos plea instantly made those two alibis absurd. Let it never be said that Mueller doesn’t know how to play Washington power politics at an NFL level.
And we already have a clue as to who the second will be.
History 'lesson'.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 31, 2017
Forty years ago next April, a defendant in a criminal trial wrote a letter to the judge handling his case. He and four others were facing a burglary rap and the judge had a well-deserved reputation for handing out stiff sentences.
The defendant wanted the judge to understand the pressures he was under, and also to understand that he had no intention of taking the rap alone. He wrote, in part:
"Be that as it may, in the interests of justice, and in the interests of restoring faith in the criminal justice system, which faith has been severely damaged in this case, I will state the following to you at this time which I hope may be of help to you in meting out justice in this case:
1. There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilty and remain silent.
2. Perjury occurred during the trial in matters highly material to the very structure, orientation, and impact of the government’s case, and to the motivation and intent of the defendants.
3. Others involved in the…operation were not identified during the trial, when they could have been by those testifying.
4. The…operation was not a CIA operation. The Cubans may have been misled by others into believing that it was a CIA operation. I know for a fact that it was not.
5. Some statements were unfortunately made by a witness which left the Court with the impression that he was stating untruths, or withholding facts of his knowledge, when in fact only honest errors of memory were involved.
6. My motivations were different than those of the others involved, but were not limited to, or simply those offered in my defense during the trial. This is no fault of my attorneys, but of the circumstances under which we had to prepare my defense."
The judge was John Sirica. The defendant was a security consultant named James McCord, who worked for the committee to re-elect President Richard Nixon. He went to jail. Ultimately, he did not go alone.
I mention this because it’s helpful to remind everyone that, in our current context, you really don’t know whence the first crack in the wall will come. McCord was the first crack in Watergate because he had no intention of carrying the full weight of other people’s crimes.
This is generally how it happens. (By contrast, the first break in Iran-Contra came from, of all places, a small Lebanese newspaper called al-Shiraa.)
It appears at the moment that the first break in the scandal of the moment may be the plea bargain struck in secret between special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and George Papadopoulos, the Trump foreign-policy adviser who the White House now insists was a part-time maintenance man at the State Department or something.
The release of the Papadopoulos plea deal was brilliant politics. Mueller plainly understood that, had he announced only the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the White House could’ve sluffed it off as old news that did not touch on the Russian ratfcking that is Mueller’s primary assignment.
The release of the Papadopoulos plea instantly made those two alibis absurd. Let it never be said that Mueller doesn’t know how to play Washington power politics at an NFL level.
