Originally posted by Mountain Man
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Is this that thing you do where you pretend to be stupid and hope your opponent will trip himself up trying to explain it to you? Or perhaps you're not pretending. Either way, this isn't complicated:
1) Intelligence agencies arranged for Papadopolous to be given a large sum of cash that they expected him to naively bring with him into the US.
2) The plan was for this cash to be "discovered" as part of the normal customs screening process because this is done without a warrant. They didn't care if he had only a portion of the cash with him, because that would have still made it plausible enough to sit him down under a hot light and squeeze a "confession" out of him. But it was necessary they "discover" physical evidence on his person or in his luggage in order for the scheme to work.
3) It turns out that Papadopolous isn't an idiot and left the cash with a lawyer friend in Greece.
4) The FBI screwed up and arrested him before they realized there was no incriminating evidence to be "discovered". How do you explain that to a judge? "But, your honor, we only arrested him because we expected him to have the evidence we planted! It's not our fault he outsmarted us!"
So in the end, the FBI had to scramble to cover up their busted sting, and so Papadopolous was slapped with a nothing-burger "lying to investigators" charge and served something like 10-days in jail (although considering how hot his wife is, 10-days away from her could be considered cruel and unusual punishment).
1) Intelligence agencies arranged for Papadopolous to be given a large sum of cash that they expected him to naively bring with him into the US.
2) The plan was for this cash to be "discovered" as part of the normal customs screening process because this is done without a warrant. They didn't care if he had only a portion of the cash with him, because that would have still made it plausible enough to sit him down under a hot light and squeeze a "confession" out of him. But it was necessary they "discover" physical evidence on his person or in his luggage in order for the scheme to work.
3) It turns out that Papadopolous isn't an idiot and left the cash with a lawyer friend in Greece.
4) The FBI screwed up and arrested him before they realized there was no incriminating evidence to be "discovered". How do you explain that to a judge? "But, your honor, we only arrested him because we expected him to have the evidence we planted! It's not our fault he outsmarted us!"
So in the end, the FBI had to scramble to cover up their busted sting, and so Papadopolous was slapped with a nothing-burger "lying to investigators" charge and served something like 10-days in jail (although considering how hot his wife is, 10-days away from her could be considered cruel and unusual punishment).
And why would that require *marked* money?
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