Special counsel Robert Mueller has been monitoring George Papadopoulos‘ Twitter activity closely, a Wednesday filing shows.
Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, is attempting to stay out of jail pending the outcome of former Roger Stone aide Andrew Miller‘s challenge of Mueller’s authority. Papadopoulos’ 14-day jail stint was scheduled to begin on Nov. 26, but he and his new legal team have attempted to put that on hold.
Mueller responded to that motion to continue Papadopoulos’ bail on Wednesday by saying that this gambit should be denied because his “motion is made for purposes of delay, and he has not presented a substantial legal question that is likely to result in reversal.”
Basically, what this boils down to is this: Papadopoulos isn’t appealing anything, he’s asking the court to put off jail until a separate appeal reaches a conclusion. Even if Papadopoulos did file an appeal, Mueller said, “the defendant’s time to file any appeal expired on September 25, 2018, fourteen days after the entry of judgment.”
“Moreover,” Mueller continued, “the defendant expressly waived his rights to appeal a sentence within the statutory range, which he received.”
On the very same page of the document are the references to Papadopoulos’ Twitter account.
Mueller pointed out that after Papadopoulos was sentenced “he made a variety of public statements that appear to be inconsistent with his stated acceptance of responsibility at sentencing.”
That agreement did say the following:
“For example, on October 25, 2018, the defendant publicly tweeted that his prosecution constituted ‘the biggest case of entrapment!’ Appearing on a national television show the next day, the defendant stated that he was ‘considering withdrawing his agreement’ because he should not ‘have to serve even one day in jail for something that now it seems was completely orchestrated and I was framed,'” Mueller said. “Several days later, the defendant publicly tweeted: ‘I have been sentenced to prison in our country while having exculpatory evidence hidden from me. If I knew what I knew today, I would have never plead guilty.’ On November 9, 2018, the defendant tweeted, ‘Biggest regret? Pleading guilty.’”
The amusing thing isn’t just that these tweets are no longer on Papadopoulos’ Twitter account — it’s that the special counsel saw fit to add three identical footnotes to say so.
You can read the rest of Mueller’s response to Papadopoulos below.
Mueller Responds to George Papadopoulos by Law&Crime on Scribd
[Image via Alex Wong/Getty Images]
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Follow Law&Crime:
