Former Trump adviser's last-minute attempt to evade 14-day jail sentence failed spectacularly

Former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos is heading to jail for two weeks after failing in a last-ditch attempt to evade his sentence — a fate he seemed to accept in a series of forlorn tweets over the weekend.

The former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign said Sunday he will not make any further attempts to escape his sentence, which followed his October guilty plea for lying to the FBI in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“The support from America has been overwhelming,” Papadopoulos, 31, tweeted Sunday night. “You have all given me the strength to carry this boulder. Every day the haters get shouted out by the patriots and the people who believe in justice and love America.”

Not that he had much choice: In a seething court opinion hours earlier, federal judge Rudolph Moss denied Papadopoulos’ two motions to delay his surrender date, ruling that Papadopoulos “waited until the eleventh hour” and “has only his own delay to blame.” The judge also noted that Papadopoulos did not file a “timely appeal” of his conviction and did not bring “a collateral challenge of any type” to his sentence or conviction.

“Papadopoulos attempts to deal with this problem in a single sentence, merely noting that he ‘may bring a motion based on newly discovered evidence,’” Moss wrote. “That is all that he says, and it is unpersuasive.”

Papadopoulos, as he is wont to do, tweeted through it.

Despite Papadopoulos’ meandering denials, however, Judge Moss specifically noted that Papadopoulos had met a “Russian national” in March of 2016 who he believed “had connections to Russian government officials” and “sought to use her Russian connections over a period of months in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials.”

Papadopoulos’ own wife — whom he married earlier this year after they were introduced by a Maltese professor believed to have high-level connections in the Kremlin — has even acknowledged that special counsel Robert Mueller believed she might be a Russian spy.

“I come from a political background myself. I used to work as a diplomat at the European Parliament for a few years, and this could be a red flag because many officials at European Union actually — it’s a cover-up for spy jobs,” Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos told ABC News in September.

“Of course this connection was highly suspicious. … I always said I respect Mueller’s interest in my profile because clearly it’s quite alarming, the fact that I marry George Papadopoulos in the middle of this storm,” she said.

Her husband is headed to the minimum-security prison camp at FCI Oxford, in Oxford, Wisconsin.

Cover image: WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 07: A protester holds up a sign as former Trump Campaign aide George Papadopoulos arrives at the U.S. District Court for his sentencing hearing September 7, 2018 in Washington, DC. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty last year for making a 'materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement' to investigators during FBI's probe of Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)