"How many times do we need to teach you this lesson, old man!"
Manafort always looks like a used car salesman from L.A. Noire, so i can't not picture him pulling a weird "i smelled a fart" face every time Mueller asks him a question
https://i.imgur.com/8xvyThu.png
Noose.
Maybe Mueller should take away Manafort's shovel before he digs himself all the way to China. (Or rather Russia, lol.)
The Good
Manafort's guilty pleas still stand.
Crimes that would not be prosecuted as part of plea are now back on the table.
New charges can now be filed against Manafort's for the perjury.
Manafort already told Mueller quite a bit, and Mueller has enough knowledge and proof of events to separate fact from fiction.
New leads provided by Manafort can still be followed up on.
Any documentary evidence provided by Manafort can still be used.
The Bad
This is a federal crime, pardonable by Trump.
This came on the back of news that a second witness is being uncooperative, suggesting a coordinated strategy that Trump's legal team is probably behind -- floating pardons for pardonable crimes if they protect Trump.
Manafort, and Manafort's testimony, is now useless in a court of law. He cannot be called as a witness.
We may not be as near the end of this as we'd hoped, which is bad news for the future of our nation.
Yeah it's worrisome to think that this will be a major setback. People keep saying "oh Mueller knows that he's lying and can prove it so Manafort is fucked." But just like BDA said, then whatever Manafort has said since the beginning of the deal is now thrown into jeopardy. I don't think this something that should be celebrated
https://twitter.com/davidgura/status/1067430711349497856?s=19
BIG IF TRUE
Maybe Trump's written answers implicated Manafort.
Exactly. It puts Manafort into much more serious legal trouble, but hurts the case against the real target: Trump.
The only rational reason why Manafort would do this is if it had been communicated to him that pardons are incoming. Today, Trump launched into another Twitter tantrum about how Mueller is ruining the loves of good men and blah blah blah.
Whitaker is AG, the SCOTUS is stacked, and GOP still holds Senate. Trump is protected from all sides for as long as this remains true. He is going to pull the trigger soon.
Then he ensured he loses in 2020 and goes to prison on January 21st 2021.
There are still plenty of other, non-pardonable crimes Manafort can be hit with and things Manafort says and does can be used. Its not Manafort just walks out of this with clean hands, this is incredibly overdramatic.
That assumes we even have fair elections by 2020 - or elections at all.
Ironically the main election cheats in the midterms were domestic lmao. But the states are still upgrading their election shit, there's was an article about how they weren't ready for 2018 but will be in 2020.
A pardon is the difference between spending the rest of his life in prison and walking free in eight years. Do you really think that's insignificant?
I think there is plenty of state charges he can be pressed with to keep him occupied for a while.
Aren't a lot of the crimes Manafort is up for also able to be prosecuted through a state, and if he receives a pardon, that automatically means he's guilty of those crimes. And being guilty of state level crimes is not pardonable
That's why they're betting on that upcoming supreme court case that, depending on how it goes, may overturn the current precedent that people can be tried for the same charges at state and federal level.
I think Manafort screwed himself pretty hard, I doubt he will get the pardon he wants unless Trump gets elected to a 2nd term, which is a big gamble considering what the last election was like.
Otherwise to do so under a Dem house with the investigative power is only going to hurt Trump right now, and Trump really only cares about himself and his business in the end.
I think you're a little too focused on Trump here. There's plenty to go after Trump for, but just taking him down won't make any significant impact on the ability for people to pull off shit like this again. For this to be truly successful it needs to take down as many guilty parties as possible, both to take them out of any position of power but also to show that such schemes won't be tolerated by the system.
Oh, I agree completely, and always have. As I've said many times, Trump is the symptom, not the disease. He could drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow and we'd still be in a serious constitutional crisis. In terms of justices however, it's absolutely critical that we scoop out the entire corrupt core and wipe clean the pus that's drained from it.
In addition to everybody else, Trump MUST face justice for justice to be achieved. Simply locking up his co-conspirators just isn't enough to save our democracy.
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