Paul Manafort found guilty

How'd I make you into a strawman there?

 

Err, I thought I made it clear that I accepted that, I said I expect them to do that, you bet. Now you're building strawmen.

 

Because pundits right now are making that meeting on the plane into something that it can only be made into by raw speculation. Not really fair, right? There are only three people who know what happened on that plane: Bill, Loretta, and God Himself. So I was comparing that situation to the raw speculation going on about Trump--they are comparable. And there is no excuse for an ongoing counsel to have free reign to investigate the Executive Branch absent darned good evidence--not theory--of something seriously criminal having occurred, high crimes and misdemeanors, that would support impeachment and removal. Short of that, Mueller should step down, just as Starr should've 20 years ago. The Republicans went through that crazy dance of investigating and impeaching Bill when they knew they had zero chance of removing him. It was conducted purely to damage him politically. What it did was hurt the office and the balance of powers. Carville was right. This situation is not much different.

 

You definitely need to get a tt position here. Then we can consume massive amounts of coffee in the faculty lounge and have raging debates there. I swear, Stanislav, I'll even try to reconvert to a right winger like I was in the 90s just for you, just to liven it up. But after spitting at each other in anger, we'll have to go to one of the dive bars that ring campus and slap backs and have a beer. OK?

 

"The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?"
"Aras" is a major Moscow developer, which is synonymous to "figure close to Putin". His son Emin is an Azerbaijani-Russian "pop star" who happens to be an ex of the granddaughter of a KGB general turned Politburo member (a Soviet demigod) turned owner of Azerbaijan. Gee, if we could only "speculate" what was it all about. Who knows if by agreeing to the meeting to get information from Russian intelligence, Don Jr. really intended to collaborate with Russia to help his dad get elected? Mystery.

I see the Constitutional issues, albeit probably not as clearly as you do. But let's get back to the basic facts, shall we? We have a President who is known to be far from incorruptible. We have a foreign, hostile power going to unusual lengths to help along the campaign of said President. Said President just coincidentally did business with characters from that power (where there are no lines between business, government, and organized crime). And his inner circle swarms with people with ties to the foreign power. Oh, also the President keeps expressing admiration of the leader of that exact foreign, corrupt, hostile, aggressive power, undermining his own intelligence agencies. I would be thankful for any legal arrangement that can enable American LE get as far to the bottom of this as humanly possible. You need evidence of impeachable offence to, well, impeach, not try to defend your country.

 

Oops

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/26/prosecutors-allege-paul-manafort-lied-to-investigators.html

 

You don't lie to Mueller. What an idiot.

 

An idiot who bilked poor nations out of tens or hundreds of millions, while helping tyrants to stay in power (and bilk billions from their nations while repressing them).

I'm really pleased Mueller made this sewer scum answer for at least a teeny tiny portion of his crimes. Hopefully some of his employers will also get what they deserve.

 

The president might bring down the pardon hammer to try to pardon his way out of this mess. Manafort is obviously hoping to be directly involved when the pardon hammer is wielded. I'll guess that Trump will even try to pardon himself in the process. It will cause an interesting judicial and political mess if he does.

Regarding Trump pardoning himself, I'd guess his lawyers would tell him not to do it because it would make the corrupt intent too obvious but he does like to trust his gut.

Anyway, getting back on topic, I would guess that Manafort is still hiding somethings from Mueller? If so then he's hoping that Mueller doesn't find out because that would make his pardon more likely if it's kept secret.

Another interesting question, do you really think that Trump and Manafort could really be so audacious as to have Manafort go into the agreement with Mueller with a plan on violating the agreement? Or is it more likely that Manafort wanted to cooperate but couldn't ever turn on his Russian partners because he thought they would kill his whole family? Or?

 

At some point fairly early on in the process Mueller turned elements of the Manafort investigation over to the New York State Attorney General. That investigation, and the subsequent charges have been occurring quietly on a parallel course with that of the Mueller investigation. The relevance is that because these are state charges, Trump has no pardon authority. So sad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/business/trump-manafort-pardon-new-york-state-vance.html

 

Yes, I'm sure Mueller has been taking steps to weaken the "pardon hammer". If mass pardons do occur, it could put the whole thing into chaos that could take perhaps even years to unravel.

 

Manafort got himself into more trouble

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/paul-manafort-lied-mueller-investigators-judge-ruling

 

Ok, so you all know by now that Manafort picked up another 43 months, increasing his sentence to 7.5 years. But did you know that he also just got indicted on 16 more counts in New York?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/paul-manafort-indicted-manhattan-district-attorney-n982826

 

Maybe it's not a nice thing to admit but I find this to be amusing

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/08/yohai-manafort-sentenced-068279