Oh, the things you learn from reading the transcript of House investigators’ interview with George Papadopoulos, the former campaign aide for President Donald Trump who spent time in federal prison for making false statements to the FBI. 

The House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees interviewed Papadopoulos on Oct. 25, 2018, and current Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins released the transcript of the interview this week. It’s kind of fun, amid the serious legal and ethical issues that we at HoH are happy to hand off to someone else.  

More to our liking are Papadopoulos passages that show how to get ahead in politics, how people really communicate and the very stringent hiring practices of the 2016 Trump campaign.

Without further ado (or much context): 

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn

“I had reached out to Corey Lewandowski sometime in the summer of 2015 via LinkedIn to basically just say I’m interested in working on the campaign.”

Projecting confidence

“I’m not sure exactly what the thought process was of the hiring team, why they exactly wanted me on.”

Knowledge of limitations

“So what I thought was, since I really don’t have any background in the U.S.-Russia relationship whatsoever, how am I really going to help the candidate, you know, materialize some sort of summit or help articulate at least what he’s talking about?”

You’re not alone

“I was never paid on the Trump campaign.”

Girlfriend or girl who’s a friend?

“And all of a sudden, one day he says, I want to introduce you to my girlfriend. And I say, Okay, that’s great. We would go out for beers all the time and, you know, and he said I want to introduce you to my girlfriend. And I said, that’s fine. Who’s your girlfriend?”

So weird

“You know, you should have been working with Ted Cruz, they
were telling me. I mean, weird things like that.”

This pending invitation is awaiting your response

“Keeping in touch with me on LinkedIn, email for months after that.
Sharing information. I think they shared some information from
the State Department with me that they wanted me to pass along to
the campaign. They were two active duty people at the U.S. embassy in London.”

It was in Indiana, or Illinois or Nevada, something like that

“I’m just telling you what he told me. And that he said that you and I — meaning George, you and me — were in a casino and, probably in Indiana or in Chicago, likely Indiana, or in Vegas, because I had traveled to Vegas with my friend, and they were photos of us.”

Evolutionary theory

“Let’s remember the campaign was kind of in a disarray by the time I joined. I think Corey Lewandowski was fired shortly after I joined. To the best of my, you know, recollection of how — what was going on at the time. Then Paul Manafort joined. He was fired. And Kellyanne Conway. So you have — I mean, it certainly evolved.”

Camera shy

“There was a point where I believe I was an official media surrogate of the campaign. … I don’t think I ever went on TV. No, I don’t think I ever went on TV for the campaign, but I believe I was an official surrogate.”

IRL

“I never met Steve Bannon face-to-face; I never met Mike Flynn face-to-face; and I never K.T. McFarland face-to-face.”

Visions of honey traps

“Another beautiful young lady — you know, I had many young beautiful ladies coming into my life with Joseph Mifsud and now another professor. The professors liked to introduce me to young beautiful women.”

Brownnoser

“Hi, I’m George. You’re the new campaign chairman. I want to get in your good grace. Nice to meet you.”

Fully funded

“Fortunately, I was paid on the [Ben] Carson campaign, a good amount of money. Well, to me, it was a good amount of money. Plus some savings and … assets, yeah, plus family support too. I have a good family and they backed me while I was on this adventure. And they wanted me to succeed, so they helped me out.”