Manafort lied to the prosecutors. What’s up with that?
Paul Waldman puts recent events together:
First, it’s unlikely that Mueller would be withdrawing Manafort’s plea agreement unless he had specific evidence demonstrating that Manafort lied. He’s going to lay that evidence out for the court as the judge considers what sentence to give Manafort, in what amounts to another indictment.
Second, Trump’s lawyers and Manafort’s lawyers have a joint defense agreement that allows them to share information. And third, Trump recently completed a set of written answers to Mueller’s questions.
Hmmm … so Trump’s answers probably were predicated on what he knew Manfort had told the Mueller team. And only after Trump submitted his answers did Mueller reveal that he knew Manafort had lied. Hmmmm…
Mueller’s team appears to have no doubt that Manafort was lying to them. That means they didn’t really need his testimony, at all. It also means they had no need to keep secrets — they could keep giving Manafort the impression that he was pulling a fast one over the prosecutors, all while reporting misleading information to Trump that he could use to fill out his open book test. Which increases the likelihood that Trump just submitted sworn answers to those questions full of lies.
And that “detailed sentencing submission … sett[ing] forth the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies†that Mueller mentions in the report?
There’s your Mueller report, which will be provided in a form that Matt Whitaker won’t be able to suppress.
Heh. Trump may be the single most thoroughly screwed man on the planet right now. This may be why he’s throwing nuclear tantrums on the Internets.
Trump definitely is not having a good week. Yesterday GM announced factory closings and layoffs, which of course made Trump look really, really bad. So today he is issuing threats against General Motors, although exactly what he thinks he can do without congressional approval isn’t clear.
There are also reports that Manafort met with Julian Assange several times in the Ecuadorian Embassy. The last meeting was in March 2016, which was about the same time Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager.
Note that Jerome Corsi has bravely rejected a plea deal and says he’d rather rot in jail than take a plea. Works for me.
I agree with the legal assessment that Trump has no legal defense team or legal strategy. What Trump has is a Public Relations Strategy and a Political Defense. The PR Strategy is based on the defamation of Mueller. For the majority of Americans (60% according to Gallup this week) the strategy isn't working now and that's before evidence is released. IMO, the Trump approval rating will decrease to 30% when the facts show Trump's criminal actions and the Alpha Male façade is stripped.
The Political Defense is based on the assumption that a sitting president can't be indicted and the Senate won't remove Trump by impeachment. The clock is ticking on 2020 – if Trump looses the election the Political Defense Strategy evaporates. At that point, Trump will employ the Flying Monkeys Strategy.
Trump imagines that the fans at his pep rallies will die for him. It feels that way, I'm sure when he revs up the crowd with lies and posturing. Trump may call for domestic terrorism until/unless charges against him are withdrawn. That's when things get really ugly because a few will act on the call. That will be the final act of an American tragedy and hopefully the cure to the stupidity that got Trump elected.
Maybe it's this darn head cold, but it feels like the Trump-Mueller-Manafort game has passed into such impenetrably complex strategy that I don't trust any conclusion at this point. All I know is the obvious: short of a pardon, Manafort will be in jail until he dies.
Read somewhere that farm bankruptcies have doubled – over the last year? not sure of the timeframe.
comment on yahoo: "Trump Hotels & Resorts was public for nine years, lost $647 million and paid shareholders 10 cents on the dollar after bankruptcies. Let's see how Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Carrier, Ford, Harley-Davidson, GM, US farmers and Walmart survive his genius business advice."
What does tRUMP think he can do to General Motors?
Say that as Commander in Chief, he's going to lower the rank, and henceforth, the company will be called Colonel Motors?
If only throwing water on Trump would really make him melt away. The sooner the better.
Bonnie – You may be on to something. Remember how Trump was afraid to go out in the rain in France?
I feel bad for the workers who got shafted putting their faith in Trump. He oversold himself as the Great Business Man and they bought it when they should have known better. But even with this there will still be some who will support him from the unemployment lines. Sad!
That will be the final act of an American tragedy and hopefully the cure to the stupidity that got Trump elected.
I don't think the stupidity is going to be cured. It's built into the system..it is,was, and always will be. It's in the nature of being human. But it probably will be in remission when Mueller's report comes out.
“I don’t think the stupidity is going to be cured.†The stupidity is rife in that party. Mississippi just consigned itself, unnecessarily, to 6 years of a Senator unfit to hold a line manager job at McDonalds.
If it weren't for my extreme desire to see Trump have to answer for his crimes I'd enjoy all the intrigue and legal plotting going on between Muller and Trump's camp. If the stakes weren't so high I'd be able to just sit back and enjoy the cat and mouse show like I was watching a good movie, but the idea that Trump could possibly succeed in burying the truth and avoiding justice takes the pleasure out of watching.
I'm really hoping that Mueller is one step ahead and that his delay in pulling Manafort's plea agreement was timed with the intention of lulling Trump into thinking he was one up on Mueller when he submitted his written answers.
Maybe I should offer up a prayer to St. Robespierre, the patron saint of prosecutors?
Mueller may be wise enough to understand what he's up against. And being a struggle between what claim to be Republicans, I sure hope this isn't all about the shakedown cash.
@ <i>Read somewhere that farm bankruptcies have doubled – over the last year?<i>
"For example, China is the world's largest consumer of soybeans, gobbling up about 65 percent of all trade of the commodity. The Chinese bought more than $12 billion in American soybeans in 2017, or 57 percent of all U.S. exports of the crop."
"Thanks to the 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans, Chinese importers have been canceling contracts with American farmers for later in the year and buying more from Brazil—which is expected to soon be the world's top soybean producer."
And this is just one of many agricultural exports.
I cannot imagine for a minute why US farmers would be having financial problems. And the kicker is going to be that even if the trade war ends, Chinese buyers are unlikely to switch back to US suppliers when they have a good secure supply from Brazil.
The same type of thing is likely to apply to something like wine exports. There are lots of countries out there with high quality wines and enough of a surplus to supply the Chinese market.
Cadet Bonespurs seems to be doing his best to destroy US agriculture.
All hell seems to be breaking loose in multiple directions.
One, As this post pointed out, Manifort breached his plea agreement deal by lying to Mueller multiple times on multiple subjects.
Two. Manifort WAS cooperating (according to Rudy) with the Trump defense team, feeding them inside info on the Mueller probe at least what could be gleaned from the questions Mueller was asking Manifort.n(Rudy may think that by announcing the conspiracy, it becomes a non-conspiracy.)
Three. Trump dangled a pardon for Manifort by announcing it was on the table. (If any of the lies that Manifort was caught telling Mueller would tend to exonerate Trump, there is corrupt intent.)
Four. Trump threatened the democrats of the US House with declassifying damaging documents if they "want to play tough". This is Obstruction of Justice, threatening the investigators to discourage an investigation.
Five. Cohen blew the lid off the Trump Tower in Moscow deal. Documents related to the deal surfaced long ago but Cohen can testify who knew what and when. If Cohen can links aspects of the business strategy, directed by Trump, with the campaign, like securing the Republican nomination as a negotiating tool, we have Trump personally engaged in business foreplay, deliberately implying in business negotiations that Trump's influence as US president is a bargaining chip.
Six. The Corsi plea agreement was made public by Corsi, who is Roger Stone's playmate. Emails between Corsi and Stone prove advance knowledge of the Wikileaks dump. Corsi blew off the plea deal and the specifics in the plea offer show Corsi is toast in a trial. If this is also true of Stone, that proof is there, these two birds have no hope unless Trump gives them both a pardon.
Riddle me this. How can Trump survive an Obstruction of Justice charge if he pardons Manifort, Stone and Corsi and LEAVES his enemies in jail or without the same pardon. (Flynn, Cohen, Gates and Nader). If Trump does not pardon his allies, and they expect a pardon, will they turn on Trump, strictly for vengeance, if Trump is out of office having left them to rot in jail.
The ONLY scenario where all the bad guys win is if Trump installs a VP who will pardon Trump after Trump has pardoned his friends. Bizarre plot twist for a fictionalized version of the story. If Trump resigned and the VP died before a new VP was sworn in, Pelosi would become president.
The Mueller investigation is entering the holy shit phase. I've heard one commentator say that because Manafort had already plead guilty, the idea of being in a joint defense agreement with Trump was out the window. Manafort's lawyer could be looking at a witness tampering charge and a charge for impeding a federal investigation. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it would be nice to see Kevin Downing get his ass handed to him for being a Trump stooge. Manafort should have hired Bruce Cutler, then maybe he wouldn't be sitting in stir right now.
It's also nice to see that Cohen is doing the right thing. The wisest move he can make is to fess up and dish on everything he know's about Trump's scams and criminal activity.
tRUMP is radioactive!
He soils everyone and everything he not only touches, but casts his eyes upon.
It's nice to watch the Captain of the sinking ship indirectly drown the rats before they can completely run away.
The only way all of the drowning rats can save themselves, is to turn on Captain tRUMP!!!
We are getting a glimpse of why Trump was successful in business. The problem is he still believes he can run the government the same way. Thank God we have checks and balances even if they are not all working right now. I have faith that the truth will win out and Trump and anyone who has enabled him will share a big cell in prison. I used to feel sorry for Melania but I have come to feel she is just as corrupted as he is.
Who needs soap operas when we have the news?
He soils everyone and everything he not only touches, but casts his eyes upon.
Yeah, take a look at Jeff Sessions. He's cursing the day he first put on a MAGA hat. When he was getting his send off handshake from Whitaker you could see the steam coming out of his ears. What a humiliation! He looked all flushed like he'd just been sodomized. And in an abstract sense he had been. Trump really stuck it to him.
He gave up his Senate seat to get the job he dreamed of all his life, and Trump just tossed him away like a used rubber.
The only reason Jaba the Gut isn’t in prison RIGHT NOW is that the DoJ has an “opinion†that seated Presidents can’t be indicted. Thinner protection than a Made-in-China “condimentâ€.
Swami,
A used rubber is far more useful than Jeff Secessionsate.
The other irony here is Flake would have won if he hadn’t caved — his natural response to stress. Low-life MacSally very nearly won — lost by a pretty small margin. Yeah for us; a pick-up in our column.
gulag…I'm not sticking up for Sessions. He got his just reward. It's just how it was delivered and by whom that makes me feel a tinge of sympathy for ol' Jefferson. Two years of a public belittlement/beatdown only to get replaced by a guy who has more knowledge of masculine toilets than he does of the law. His replacement is a big part of the humiliation that Trump heaped upon him. Yep, he tossed him off like a Coney Island whitefish.
You know, at some point, Lurch, the brain-eating Vice President might begin to look lower maintenance to Mitch and soon-to-be-departed Paul than Ebenezer Orangehead and his family of failed clones.
Swami,
What the hell is wrong with a Coney Island whitefish?
I LOOOOOOOOOVE whitefish!!!!!
JAYZOOOOOOOOOOOS H. BIPARTISAN KEEEEEERIST!!!!!
Chris Matthews just had to wipe his mouth after gladly swallowing the load of bullshit John Kasich just spewed in his direction! "Eat it up! Swallow it!! YUM!!!!!"
OY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Coney_Island_whitefish
Manafort stone Cohen all possible charges for trump. Oh. And Trump's favorite bank ,Deut sche bank got raided today for money laundering.
The OH CRAP expression on Trumps face at the tree lighting ceremony is not because Cohen has flipped. Trump expected that. Trump realized Whittaker isnt going to jail for obstruction. Trump has no protection at DOJ.
Swami,
Yuck…