Now, it is true that Trump can pardon Manafort (though that probably won’t happen right away). That’s the only sane explanation for Manafort doing what he did, that he is still certain he’ll be pardoned. But many of these charges can still be charged in state court.
Just about the only explanation for Manafort’s actions are that — as I suggested — Trump was happy to have Manafort serve as a mole in Mueller’s investigation.
But 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. (Reminder: Mueller included 38 pages of evidence along with Manafort’s plea agreement, which I argued showed how what Manafort and Trump did to Hillary was the same thing that Manafort had done to Yulia Tymoshenko.) (our emphasis)Here's the Special Counsel's filing on Manafort (pdf). Here's a quick review of Manafort's legal history with the Special Counsel.
Of all the crooks and traitors snared to date in the Special Counsel's investigation, Manafort is arguably the most hardcore corrupt. But Manafort is also a stupid man, whose overwhelming greed and hubris resulted in amateurishly doctored financial statements and easily discovered tax evasion, crimes that can and certainly will be prosecuted at the State level to assure Manafort will do significant time regardless of any prospective Trump pardon (and, no, double jeopardy doesn't apply). Meanwhile, knowing Manafort was sharing information/ strategy with the Trump legal team all along, the Special Counsel simply waited for Dolt 45 to submit his responses to the Special Counsel's questions before pulling the rug out from under Manafort, potentially catching Rump in that ol' "perjury trap."
That he thinks he can outmaneuver the Special Counsel on the promise of a pardon from Dolt 45, and that his problems will disappear, indicates that the former Roger Stone business partner and professional Republican ratf*cker may have just made the most stupid mistake of his life.
UPDATE: You think maybe the ratf*cker was at the center of it all from the get- go?
Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told.
Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House.
It is unclear why Manafort wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers.This would be another confirmation of the validity of the Steele dossier:
According to the dossier written by the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, Manafort was at the centre of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and Russia’s leadership. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Clinton, Steele wrote, whom Putin “hated and feared”.
In a memo written soon after the DNC emails were published, Steele said: “The [hacking] operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of his campaign team.”Boom!
