Manafort’s Play
Robert Mueller’s investigation team made a filing today asking the judge in Paul Manafort’s criminal trial to prepare to sentence him because he’s been lying to the FBI since his plea deal. Imagine it – you’re 69 years old and facing spending the rest of your life in prison, have already been convicted on 8 felony counts and have pleaded guilty to 2 other counts. What person in their right mind would lie to the FBI when the result would be the rest of your natural life in prison? Answer: One who has been assured of a federal pardon if he protected the President of the United States.
Look – Either Manafort has lost his mind and WANTS to die in prison, or he’s falling on his sword because he’s going to be given a get out of jail free card. Oh, one other possibility comes to mind – the Russians are threatening a member of his family if he talks, so he may actually be falling on his sword to protect his family.
Sounds like a mafia movie, doesn’t it?
Kinda like a mafia movie, yeah.
But more like a Richard Condon book. Indeed, I suspect Condon may still be living and drafting the daily or weekly play book for Trumpistas.
1There’s a third possibility: Manafort’s gullible enough to think Trump will make any effort to help a former underling. Trump views underlings like Big Mac wrappers: once you’re done, throw them away.
2Trump is probably inclined to string him along with a potential pardon and then abandon him. However, if Manaforts trial Gets moved up, Trump may actually have to pardon him. Or else all the other potential squealers that the Feds have in line will really start spilling their guts to the Feds.
If Trump bails on Manafort expect the singing to commence inearnest.
Sure, the Russians don’t want to be put in a bad light but what do they really care. There is always some other American (Republican) tool out there to be used. None of them are going to jail or get sanctioned (meaningfully…see Republican tools, use of).
3Theory I am hoping for is that Mueller knew Manafort was trying to play him and reversed the roles
4Full cooperation with demented Donnie’s lawyers informing them in detail of what mueller was asking him is what I am hearing about his plea violation
The theory was mueller waited until after the doddering don submitted his “ written responses” with the idea that using info from Manafort to shape his lies he would further expose demented Donnie to further proof of obstruction.
Remember lieing to the FBI or mueller is a crime
Lying to ANY police authority is a crime. Therefore, I bet the Attorney General of New York is going through her files like Sarah Palin culls baby chicks right about now.
5“Like” Mafia? Shucks. My friends and I have always thought he was Mafia!
6Meanwhile babies are being gassed on the border.
Putin is freaking ecstatic that his chokehold on Ukraine is being covered by Manafort, Mueller, charging hordes of migrants, and terrified children being fear gassed…
7Are any of the charges against Manafort violations of state laws?
8He was tried in in Virginia and found guilty on 8 counts. Were they all federal violations?
Dump’s pardon would not cover state crimes.
If the Dump pardons Manafort, isn’t that obstruction of justice?
9I like K’s theory. My thought was that Trump doesn’t know what Manafort told Mueller, and their accounts differ. Mueller uses Trump’s answers to show that Manafort lied. Manafort’s lawyers prove at the sentencing hearing that Trump is the liar. Trump excoriates Manafort. Manafort sells a ”
If Manafort were sure of a pardon, wouldn’t it have been easier (and cheaper) to plead guilty without implicating anyone else?
10Sorry – accidentally hit submit while adding to the first paragraph.
11Manafort sells a “tell-all” book about Trump’s collusion, obstruction and corruption (I can dream).
I tend to agree with with both Max K and K. I think Mueller is playing chess while Manafort and Trump are still setting up the checkers board. I also think Manafort realizes his life is over and wants to go out in a blaze of I-fought-the-feds glory. The feds were all over that little snake from the start and used him to set up Trump. One of my friends calls Trump’s written answers to Mueller an “open book test.”
Something else kinda telling – Trump hasn’t said anything bad about Manafort in a long time.
12Yes, to most of the above. Mueller really is much smarter than anyone in that crowd, and he has things on them that they don’t know he has.
But I also think the Russians factor into this, too. Pauly Numnutz knows the Russians will be able to get to him no matter where in Club Fed he ends up. Remember Whitey Bulger?
Pauly knows he faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind razor wire, but he doesn’t want it to end all that soon.
13Interesting proposition applying logic to the Manafort-Dotard equation. Who would trust a potential pardon from Donnie, even if it were in writing? Plus that would require “faith” that Dotard45 lasts beyond 2020 and a leap of faith that Team Mueller doesn’t have a few potential Manafort crimes to deal out to state prosecutors somewhere and everywhere.
Then there’s this: Donnie has been on a mad dog campaign to discredit Team Mueller since day one of the investigation. That’s like a scream of “guilty.” Seriously. Not that Donnie and logic fit into a grammatically correct sentence, but “if” he were innocent of collusion and covfefe, Donnie is undermining and discrediting the one guy who could potentially exonerate him. “Ready, fire, aim …” Donnie proving that he really is a Republican.
Prediction? Answer(s) before X-mas. A grinning Manafort with a pardon or a contrite Manafort trying to climb into a stocking hung from the Muller mantlepiece.
14OOPS. While Donnie and Pauly were playing footsies in final preparations for jumping the shark, Team Mueller just levelled that Matt Whitaker speed bump. Next time Manafort is in court, Team Mueller will be dropping several pages, if not all, of the information we’ve been waiting to see.
Here’s the theory: https://crooksandliars.com/2018/11/how-mueller-just-guaranteed-he-can-issue
15Pauly Polonium is focked no matter which way he twitches.
Surely he’s smart enough to see that even if RAT45 slides him a pardon, that Vlad and several different mafias are just itching to grease him into oblivion. It will be most interesting to watch and see just how Manafort is finally wasted, he’s up against some very ingenuous assassins-torpedomen.
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Speaking of snakes: I recently found a good-sized rattlesnake in my garage, yikes. About three feet long or more, but quite skinny (read- hungry…).
Hey, how many of y’all contend with stuff like that around the house?
Rattlers and the occasional copperhead have been turning up around my place for decades (even inside). I’ve been lucky so far, but I’m going to check with our small hospitals’ ER, and maybe the Ag Bureau, about how to handle a strike (and if they stock antivenin, maybe there’s something like an Epipen for snakebites?). Had a friend who lost a brother to a rattler long ago.
Before I could cobble up some snake handling tools, the bugger got away, somewhere. He’s probably still out there if he didn’t slither outside.
I’d rather have that rattlers’ whole effen family in the house than what good ol’ Pauly Manafort has got patiently waiting to sink their fangs into him.
16Nah the current president is not Mafia. The Mafia is “organized” crime. The current president is clusterfu*k crime.
17What Sandridge says in his first graf…..
If organized crime moles in Trump’s DOJ and Federal Bureau of Prisons could orchestrate a path so Whitey Bulger could be beaten to death with a padlock in a sock after lo, these many years in safe federal custody, getting to Manafort with the polonium-tipped umbrellas is going to be child’s play for the Russian moles in the Trump administration.
18Sandridge, there’s no Epipen for snakebite. It’s not a histamine reaction like a bee sting. Antivenom is expensive and depends on the species of snake. The treatment also depends on how much venom was injected; in many cases, doctors will just treat the reactions and wait it out. I’d get a good snakebite first aid kit and learn how to use it, then wear heavy boots and watch where you put your hands.
19Why a Single Vial of Antivenom can cost $14,000: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-single-vial-antivenom-can-cost-14000-180956564/
**gasp!** ” so he may actually be falling on his sword to protect his family.”
If so, he’s proving himself to be more human than the pResident of the White House who wouldn’t step around a puddle to protect HIS family.
But then, we knew that already.
20Origuy @19, Thanks for the info. I thought antivenin was snake species unique (from watching some PBS nature program), but around here I was counting on most of them being whatever rattler subspecies we have, the most predominant species.
I have also seen those copperheads too, one big one was a real beauty, it was under a juniper near the front door. I watched it for a while. Went to get a camera and it was gone.
I probably had my phone in my pocket the other day, should have got a pic, but seeing a snake up close tends to concentrate your attention.
Had no idea that stuff was that expensive. Doubt that they would have it in stock then. Hospital is about four miles away on the edge of town.
21I have an old snakebite kit around in my boat ditch bag, I’ll get a new one or two.
As far as “heavy boots”: not too feasible getting up from sleep at 0’darkthirty and going to the bathroom…when I actually encountered one right at the bathroom door one night, yeow. I saw it just as my slipper foot was going through the door, froze instantly, then slowly retracted my leg. That is an instinctive reaction for sure, I was barely awake until my peripheral vision saw that sucker on the floor.
Same about the boots around the garage and land, not usually practical. I do try to move hands and feet cautiously though. Still, you can only be so vigilant.
I actually took some pictures one evening just outside my front door of a big hoptoad starting to swallow a small snake, I think that same toad had been around for years.
A good metaphor for Mueller, eh? He’s got a bunch of them sneks on the menu.
Sandridge –
YIKES!
Maybe time to invest in a mongoose? I don’t know how they are against rattlers, but they can take a cobra down, so…
Snakes don’t hear, they feel vibration instead. So maybe walk a little heavier around the house, to let ‘em know you’re coming.
22Lunargent @22, I have some barncats outside, but most of them seem to be too stupid to do much of anything (and some of them have periodically disappeared, either from owls, coyotes, or sneks I don’t know; might just wander off too, storms scare some of them bad).
23Have had some real cat ‘geniuses’ too, fun to watch (one applehead siamese white kitten was just amazing, super-curious, playful, and you could see him thinking; but he disappeared one night, I think an owl got him, white fur and blue eyes usually goes with poor eyesight).
As far as ‘walking heavy’, at ~6’5″ and now pear-shaped, not a problem I think…
Get a Chihuahua snakes are their job. Part of why they are so hyper.
24K, Heh, didn’t know that about them, makes sense about the Chihuahuas though.
25Although given a choice of having a Chihuahua or a rattlesnake around the house, I’ll take the snake…
(heading for the bunker now, sry, never have liked yappy lil’ Chihuahuas)
Agree about yappy dogs but all is a trade off. Yappy dog v. venomous reptile, like cuellar.
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