Depending on your politics,
To some, he's just a low-level "coffee boy" who, as an unqualified 20-something boaster, wormed his way into the chaotic
Others see him as a top foreign policy adviser, with influence in Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and inside access that allowed him to arrange meetings with foreign governments.
But after The New York Times dropped its most recent scoop about the Trump-Russia investigation, you might want to think about Papadopoulos in a different light:
As a boy made of wood, tossed into the maelstrom to save drowning reputations desperate to grab any floating object.
What we do know is that special counsel
What did he lie about? His attempts to connect the Trump campaign with Russians promising "dirt" on Trump's rival, Democrat
If you despise Trump, you might see Papadopoulos as a martyr with hysterical Republican hatred pouring down upon him. If you support Trump, you might see Papadopoulos as a useful idiot, a tool of both the Russians, who know all about useful idiots, and
In its recent story on Papadopoulos, the
But the
Amid all this are questions about the FBI's use of a salacious file involving rumors about Trump and Russian hookers that was paid for and developed as an anti-Trump propaganda document crafted in support of the Clinton campaign.
What the
Papadopoulos got drunk with some Australian diplomats at a fancy
And the Obama administration, horrified, just had to do something.
As noted by the
So the Trump-Russia story keeps morphing.
For much of 2017, the Trump-Russia story involved the so-called Steele dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, opposition research worked on by the wife of a top
Then, more recently, came something for
Now it turns out it was really Papadopoulos all along? A young guy who couldn't hold his liquor in an evening out with Australians, bragging as some do when they get sloshed and want to be thought of as the most interesting man in the world?
"It was not, as
Ah.
How convenient can this be? It's almost like a coincidence.
And it smells like herring.
Yet before the left dislocates its Twitter thumbs in tribal rage, let's be clear:
Mueller's investigation into Trump and
If Trump's people and/or the president are guilty of crimes, let them pay. But so far, we haven't seen any hard evidence. All we've seen is politics and more politics.
What we know is that the Trump people actively sought dirt on Hillary and didn't much care where it came from. And we know that some of the same investigators who found nothing wrong with
The danger in all of this isn't partisan tribal warfare. We survived the brawl between
What we might not survive are unelected bureaucrats acting on their personal views, bending policy to their politics, whether that means unleashing
Because if the American people come to believe that a vast unelected bureaucracy runs things and remains unaccountable to voters, then we'll all be in deep water soon.
And there won't be enough floating boys made of wood to help us.
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.