Yeah, let’s not forget this. While it’s not as bad as 18 convictions, it’s not over yet. Things can get much, much worse for Manafort. And I hope they do.
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maybe they’ll get a judge who’s more in the mood to see those exhibits too.
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The real show will be watching the right wing mega-mouths try to put lipstick on this pig…it’s hard to get a convincing line drawn on when the pig is squealing and thrashing around in a complete fit of denial.
If and when this pig does stroke out the entirety of his minions will claim their god was brought to such a tragedy by all the fake news that hurt his sensitive soul so deeply.
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At this point they might actually welcome the N-word tape as a distraction. At least they know how to downplay the bigotry (“rappers say that all the time!”)
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So, Kudlow knows the the dude for 40 years and doesn’t figure out the guy’s a Nazi supporter until the press tells him so? What a crock of horse manure.
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Well, there are just so many other things to talk about besides the white elephant in the room.
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Manafort: “Mama tried.”
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If Trump has any other scandals waiting in the wings he should probably just leak them now while everyone is too overwhelmed to give any of them their full attention. Shady tax returns? Paying for mistresses’ abortions? Secret illegitimate children? Hushed-up manslaughter charges? He’ll never get a better opportunity than today to let it all out!
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This puts Mueller in a great position. Manafort is looking at about 3 years or more on the $1 million bank fraud count and 5 years or more on the $3.4 million count, depending on aggravating factors (such as if he derived more than $1 million in gross receipts from one or more of the financial institutions).
At a glance it’s hard to say which of the counts will run concurrently and which consecutively, but either way it should be easy for the AUSA to get him to 10 years. So like a lot of federal cases, Manafort’s decision might now be to flip on Trump in the hope of getting out in 10 years, or move forward with the other trial(s) and serve life. It’s probably too late to avoid additional time on the DC cases anyways, so it’s hard to see him doing less than 15 total in a best case scenario. At 69, I guess he still might walk one day.
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Getting there.
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If I had a twitter account, I’d be tweeting that message at Rudy Gulianibin ALL CAPS. That’s the kind of crazy like a fox strateegery he might just embrace.
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Manafort apparently forced the two trial structure because he didnt want to face all of the charges in DC. Figured a Virginia jury would be friendlier.
So by his own estimation he’s walking into a 2nd trial on less friendly ground.
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The judge declared a mistrial on the 10 where the jury didn’t convict, which is why they can be retried. I haven’t seen anything about the reason a mistrial was declared, but Judge Ellis had expressed regret earlier for possibly biasing the jury against the prosecution.
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I’m pretty sure Cornyn should resign if he thinks Congress is not the pay-grade at which one needs to be to respond to the President abusing the pardon power to protect himself from criminal liability.
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I disagree. I’d take total chaos and incompetence over a vaguely competent theocrat any day.
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Yup. Separation of powers means the president doesn’t have a higher pay grade than a congressman.
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I was there, Marge. The clown is g-i-l-t-y.
There are a few reasons to post his today.
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I just read an interview on Slate with Jeffrey Toobin, who is CNN’s chief legal analyst. Speaking to the notion mooted herre, that Manafort faces a potential sentence of many decades he said: “It’s not 200 years. It may be 10 years. I think we in the news media have been misleading the public, to a certain extent. The way federal sentencing works is not that you add up all the counts and the person gets that number. There are federal sentencing guidelines in which the conduct is grouped together.” He does go on to immediately note:“Look, it’s all bad enough”.
Disclaimer: I’m neither a lawyer nor an American.
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There is one security in this case to which gentlemen may not have adverted: if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty. --James Madison
If it be said that the President by successive pardons of constantly recurring contempts in particular litigation might deprive a court of power to enforce its orders in a recalcitrant neighborhood, it is enough to observe that such a course is so improbable as to furnish but little basis for argument. Exceptional cases like this if to be imagined at all would suggest a resort to impeachment rather than to a narrow and strained construction of the general powers of the President. ex parte Grossman 267 US 87
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