I am reminded of an entry from the h2g2:
nothing turned a perfectly healthy individual into a great politician or military leader better than irreversible brain damage.
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He’s safer in prison than outside and his family is safer with him locked up too
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Unless Trump’s DOJ goons are trying to concoct a theory that Prez has the right to pardon state crimes. That’ll be sure interesting to see if they try to pull that one out (won’t work but just the desperation of it will prove to be hilarious).
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That’s probably why he wanted the other case against him to be heard first, trying to get a blanket pardon so this one wouldn’t happen at all.
“Frankie Pentangeli is alive.”
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I believe the mandatory minimums involved would require him to serve at least 18 months. Not sure, some one with a ton of experience with sentencing minimums said they figured that would be as little jail time served as would be possible based on the sentencing structures. Like if he did minimum time served on a minimum sentence, And as many charges as allowed were served concurrently.
But 2 things happen if he’s convicted and gets a slap on the wrist. 1st, asset forfeiture. 2nd he’s now a convicted felon for the other trials that follow. Which means those minimum sentences ratchet up exponentially with each subsequent charge.
Manafort lost his bail when he was caught tampering with witnesses. Given how quickly and easily he got caught. I don’t see any reason to think they’d be any better at jury tampering. And in all likelyhood everyone associated with him is now being very carefully watched for just such behavior.
Nixon was famously given a pre-emptive, blanket pardon by Ford. Pardoned for all crimes known and unknown committed during his presidency, before anyone had made a move to even charge him.
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Best description ever 
Is there an imgur album or Instagram feed of all of Beschizza’s eye mouth pics? There should be…
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[From Opening Arguments podcast:] It was not the prosecutors’ choice to do this. Manafort’s side, for whatever reason, was unwilling to combine the trials together, and chose to be tried in two different jurisdictions.
I wonder if the prosecutors are as WTF about this as we all are.
I can’t think of anything that screams The Fix Is In! more than Manafort’s lawyers’ silence.
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Almost all these commenters think it’s a slam dunk case. What if there is a Maga on the jury? It just takes one for a mistrial.
So both Gates and Manafort are getting away with it.
In fact you do not.
But as others have noted, presidential pardons don’t apply to convictions of state laws, only Federal.
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Jury selection is a pretty intense process. Specifically designed to weed out people with obvious biases, conflicts of interest, And ulterior motives. And jurors can be dismissed during trial. I think even during deliberations if any crop up.
Where’d you get that idea? The verdicts not in yet. Not offering a defense is in no way a good sign for the defense. And Manafort is facing multiple additional trials immediately following this one. And multiple state level investigations.
Gates is only “getting away with it” if he continues to cooperate and testify. He plead to minimal charges. Everything Manafort is being charged with is still potentially hanging over his head. And often enough these deals are contingent on successful prosecution of the people you flip on.
This trial isn’t even over. None the less the whole process.
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Do you? Nixon got a full and unconditional pardon from Ford for “any crimes he might have committed against the United States as President.”
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I guess I assume Gates has immunity and Manafort is going to get a pardon.
Well you can look up thread. Presidential pardons don’t cover the state charges he’s likely looking at. And like I said, immunity deals are often contingent on both continued cooperation and a certain level of success. Otherwise there isn’t much to hold people to plea bargains.
We don’t know the details of Gates’ deal, but these things don’t exist without something hanging over the guys head. And that something isn’t likely to be limited to the one minor charge he plead to. It’s also pretty clear that they’re interested in flipping people like Gates for more than just Manafort. So Gates wouldn’t neccisarily be done even if Manafort was.
As for Manafort, he and Trump may like to think a pardon would be the end of it. But that lights up a whole nother shit show. He still has further federal charges pending. There are the state investigations. Pardons remove 5th ammendent protections against self incrimination. There’s a lot of legal theorising that a pardon itself could represent obstruction. Preemptive pardons, And trying to push a presidential pardon to cover states are both legally dodgy. So it’s not neccisarily over even if Trump pulls the trigger. That would be a major escalation.
Trump seems dumb enough to do it. But the results will be ugly.
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Ford’s open pardon of Nixon has never been tested in court and there is some disagreement as to whether the president has that sort of power.
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“Trump seems”
Boss … I appreciate what you are saying about Manafort’s state charges versus federal.
But at the moment I believe that these all of guys committed treason, and they are going to walk off skate-free of that.
Maybe it is because Nixon is too far back; the Iran Contra did nothing perceptible to government, 2000 election, Cheney, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqs, US “extrajudicial killing of teenage family of could-be terrorist thanks obama”, constant abuse of executive orders, the emolument clause being weak sauce, and supreme court pick Brett Kavanaugh who thinks that presidents (at least GOP/Trump ones) can literally not break laws … that the man in the office of the president IS THE STATE …
So forgive me if I see no light and no tunnel only collapse.
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Fair enough, but you initially stated unambiguously that you have to be found guilty to be pardoned, which is different from there being some disagreement on whether blanket pardons would hold up in court.
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