Undermining the rule of law and betraying his country, all in a day's work for über felonious sleazeball Paul Manafort:
Paul Manafort, who served as the manager for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, provided advice to the president and senior White House officials on the FBI’s Russia investigation during the earliest days of the Trump administration. He gave guidance on how to undermine and discredit the FBI’s inquiry into whether the president, his campaign aides, and family members conspired with the Russian Federation and its intelligence services to covertly defeat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, according to government records and interviews with individuals familiar with the matter. Manafort himself was under criminal investigation by the FBI during this same time, a fact then known to the White House. [snip]
... Manafort advised the president and his political surrogates to more aggressively and directly attack the FBI and other elements of the federal law enforcement apparatus investigating his administration. The goal of Manafort’s advice was to “delegitimize” the investigation itself, one person familiar with the advice explained to me. Manafort wanted nothing less than to “declare a public relations war on the FBI,” this same person said. Another goal was to discredit then-FBI Director James Comey and other senior FBI officials — as it had become increasingly likely they would be witnesses against the president. (our emphasis)There's no doubt Individual-1 followed Manafort's advice, which happens to match Individual-1's style of attacking any threats to his power and status anyway. The article also notes Manafort, well into 2017, urged the White (Supremacist) House and Congressional co- conspirators (=cough= Devin Nunes =cough=) to attack the basis of the FISA warrants on himself and Carter Page, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, all in an apparent effort to distract from and discredit the Special Counsel's investigation.
Meanwhile, after his felony convictions and signing an agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel, Manafort has been caught back- channeling information to the White (Supremacist) House, hoping to get a pardon from Individual-1. These new facts, plus that pattern of duplicitous behavior, just adds to Manafort's obstruction of justice binder. He's just too stupid to have realized that the people in and around the Trump crime family (Individual-1's "political surrogates") were fellow rats perfectly willing to squeal on him when the pressure came down (plus, it looks like there are receipts in the form of "government records").
Of all the associates of the Trump crime family who deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail, this shitstain is very close to the top of our list. Lock him up, lock him up!
(Photo illustration by Slate. Images by Pool/Getty Images, Brendan McDermid/Reuters, Sarah Rice/Getty Images.)
