Papadopoulos Followed a Winding Path Into Trump’s Orbit

WSJ ^ | 11/1/2017 | Rebecca Ballhaus

[mojito]

For George Papadopoulos, the path to politics—and to President Donald Trump —was a circuitous one.

The former Trump aide, who pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russians during the election campaign, entered the political world in 2015 with no campaign experience and little foreign policy background.

A onetime oil and gas consultant who then served as a research associate at the conservative Hudson Institute and touted his Model United Nations experience as a credential, Mr. Papadopoulos began the 2016 presidential campaign by working for Republican Ben Carson. He was hired in November 2015 by Barry Bennett, Mr. Carson’s campaign manager, after contacting Mr. Bennett on LinkedIn.

Mr. Bennett said in an interview that he hired Mr. Papadopoulos to serve on the Carson campaign’s foreign policy committee in the wake of the terrorist attack in Paris, which set off a mad scramble among campaigns to bolster their national security expertise.

Some on the campaign were initially suspicious of Mr. Papadopoulos’s credentials, according to a former campaign official, and brought him in to vet him. The campaign official didn’t recall whether Mr. Papadopoulos cited any connections to Russia in that vetting meeting.

Mr. Papadopoulos graduated from DePaul University in 2009, according to his LinkedIn page. He obtained a master’s degree from the University of London, before working as a research analyst for two Washington-based think tanks.

His oil and gas consulting work thus far had consisted of a few months’ work at Energy Stream, a London-based consulting firm.

Mr. Papadopoulos, 30 years old, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

[RitaOK]

This little show indictment nets an immature goof ball rolling around political circles. and s

It succeeds only in establishing the fact that there is no serious vetting done, which was naive, but THAT failure will now be corrected, I bet.
PRONTO.

[mojito]

A lot of time Trump is not well-served by the people he surrounds himself with.

Yes, there have been a few...staffing problems.

[dfwgator]

Every President has staffing issues, Reagan had his, too.

[mojito]

True, but I think Trump has struggled with this more than most - largely because he can't rely on the GOP establishment for the sort of revolving door of glad-handing hangers-on that the typical DC insider campaign specializes in. This can be a good thing, but there are also pitfalls as in this case, where an inexperienced grifter and fabulist was taken aboard because the Trump people were desperate. But by the same token, it makes it difficult to believe that this guy was a vital cog in some grand collusion scheme - you have to watch CNN to believe that kind of absurdity. Mueller is grasping at straws.

[WashingtonFire]

Who paid for this guys college fees?

This whole thing stinks.

All evidence suggests he was a paid plant who was meant to get deep into the Trump machine.

[piasa]

He was interviewed by the FBI in January.

[chemical_boy]

Papadopoulos is more then likely the unnamed campaign source that Steele cited in his dossier.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Podesta, both John and Tony, are connected to George Soros operations, esp. the Open Society Foundation/Institute.

Go to www.keywiki.org, search for “George Soros” and lo-and-behold, the information is there about halfway down the Soros pages.

I smell crooks, commies, and Mr. Blofeld/Goldfinger himself behind a lot of this.