The comments following the article are also excellent, and seem to include some people with really deep knowledge of the players around the Papadapolis sting.
These are pretty trivial points to suck up a felony for mis-conveying to the FBI.
By the way: Mueller wants Papadopolis to go to jail for 1 to 6 months for this, and pay a $9500 fine.
OK, harsh justice, but he did plead guilty.
Meanwhile, what is happening to Andy McCabe. He was fired for lying to FBI and DOJ investigators about various things, and referred to a prosecutor. Where is the prosecution and or plea bargain for him?
His lies were much more material than Papadopolis's. Pdop merely mischaracterized a date, and the FBI knew the correct date (because, among other things the guy on the other side was there guy). Pdop mischaracterized how influential in Russia he was: maybe he didn't know. Maybe he has different standards for "influential" than the people asking him.... it's a subjective questions. For instance, is Steve Bannon currently influential with Trump?
But still my biggest question is "why did you plead guilty?".
I have the same question for Flynn, but in his case they were threatening his son, so that is more understandable.