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As noted in the last chapter, it’s beginning to look as if Michael Cohen is going to be Trump’s John Dean-uncharitably some are calling him John Dean without the legal skill or sense of guilt.

Michael Flynn on the other hand might be Trump’s Howard E. Hunt-who, especially after the death of his wife, was absolutely unequivocal in refusing to take a bullet for Nixon-as Cohen had said he would be willing to do for Trump just a few months ago-or for that matter do hard time for Tricky Dick.

FN: In retrospect Flynn has proven to be once a Trumper always a Trumper-see Chapter A.

Cohen had said he’d take a bullet for Manchurian ‘President Trump’ or fall through a window for him just a few months ago but as, S.E. Hinton would put it, that was then this is now. Turns out he has a sense of self preservation. Unlike G. Gordon Liddy who really was willing to take a bullet for Nixon-Liddy literally told John Dean after they all got arrested for the Watergate burglary that if they needed to shoot him walking down the street that was fine. And Liddy did go on to serve the longest sentence for Nixon-5 years. It is however looking as if Trump does have a G. Gordon Liddy: Paul Manafort.

End of FN

This coming week G. Gordon Liddy 2.0’s trial begins. Mueller has just released the witness list.

“Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office Friday released a list of potential witnesses in the upcoming Virginia trial of Paul Manafort.”

“The list of 35 men and women includes no household names, but provides a road map of the case that the government will likely present against the former Trump campaign chairman next week, including possible testimony from business partners and purveyors of luxury goods.”

“Manafort faces tax evasion and bank fraud charges in a jury trial that is set to begin Tuesday. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.”

“Rick Gates, Manafort’s former business partner and deputy on the Trump campaign, is included on the list and is expected to be one of the key witnesses in the case.”

Actually one name that does jump out at you is Tad Devine-Bernie’s 2016 chief strategist. It turns out Tad has a history with Manafort too.

“The chief strategist on the Sen. Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign for president is a potential witness in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s federal trial on bank- and tax-fraud charges.”

“Tad Devine, who worked with Manafort to help elect strongman Viktor Yanukovych president of Ukraine in 2010, revealed Thursday that he is assisting the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.”

Amazing the strange bedfellows in Watergate 2.0.

“Congratulations on a great campaign,” Devine wrote Manafort in an email after Yanukovych’s February 2010 victory. “You deserve enormous credit for pulling everything together, and for your leadership. It was great to be part of the team.”

“The Special Counsel has asked Tad Devine to appear and testify about media consulting work on past political campaigns in Ukraine,” Devine’s firm Devine Mulvey Longabaugh said in a statement. “We have been assured by the Special Counsel’s Office that we have no legal exposure, did not act unlawfully, and that Tad is testifying as a fact witness.

“Daniel Rabin, another Democratic strategist who worked with Manafort and Devine in Ukraine, is also prepared to testify. So is Alex Trusko, the former Manafort assistant who let FBI agents into his boss’s storage unit.”

Mueller’s strategy for the trial will be having all these folks who had a transactional relationship with Manafort on a financial basis attesting that he knew what he was doing. 

A number of witnesses are bank executives and accountants who can testify to the financial activities which are the focus of this trial. “The case will be proven by paper and those people who have a transactional relationship to the paper,” Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor, told Reuters. “All those people to say essentially that Manafort knew what he was doing.”

Of course, the really interesting question about Manafort is why he continues not to cooperate with the real prospect of 305 years in prison-give or take. 

There are a few theories.

Door number three-he’s angling for a pardon seems by far the most plausible. 

Harry Litman: “The most enduring mystery to date in special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry has been former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s obdurate refusal to cooperate with the investigation. Manafort has a reputation as a swashbuckling gambler, but he has been playing odds in the biggest game of his life that are not just long but prohibitive. A new report that the president’s now-former lawyer once discussed pardoning Manafort may finally explain why the latter has kept quiet — even though that bet is still incredibly risky.”

“Manafort’s refusal to cooperate can’t be driven by a rational calculation that he has any reasonable chance of escaping conviction, multimillion-dollar legal fees and a prison sentence that will result in years behind bars.”

But betting on a pardon is considered by legal experts as akin to a poker player betting on an inside straight. 

“Last week didn’t go well for Paul Manafort.”

Note this was written back at the beginning of March though that can probably be said about almost any week for Manafort post Russiagate.

“The former chairman of Donald Trump’spresidential campaign was already facing federal criminal charges for an elaborate scheme to hide as much as $75 million from the U.S. government when Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, named Manafort in not one, but two superseding indictments. The new developments left Manafort with the fearsome prospect of two separate trials, millions more in legal fees, and even more time in prison, beyond the many years he was up against. Worst of all, Manafort’s co-defendant and longtime second banana, Rick Gates—the former deputy chairman of the Trump campaign and head of the underwhelming Trump inauguration—pleaded guilty and agreed to provide testimony and information to Mueller and his team. When Gates walked out of the federal courthouse on Friday, he was practically beaming.”

FN:

Per the Mueller Report we now know Manafort tried to talk Gates out of cooperating arguing that #TeamTreasonTrump would protect them.

This fits a pattern-Michael Cohen testified to both Mueller and Congress that while he was in Trump’s office on about July 18-19, Trump got a call from Roger Stone telling him the DNC emails were about to be leaked. As to the episode with Gates you wonder if the person who told Trump this was Stone again.

As for Manafort the reason he isn’t cooperating seems to be that he is also once a Trumper always a Trumper-and that he’s playing for a pardon. His attempt to dissuade Gates from cooperating seems to confirm it.

It also has emerged that if Manafort had been candid we would have gotten a much clearer picture on Russian Collusion-with Manafort and Trump’s own part in it.

Let’s be clear-the redacted report we have seen contains tons of collusion. But if Manafort hadn’t lied and dissembled we’d have a fuller picture of just how extensive and planned the collusion, coordination, and yes, conspiracy really was.

If there’s an overall difference between Watergate and Watergate 2.0-aka Stupid Watergate-it’s that Trump’s co-conspirators are more loyal than old Tricky Dick-true Nixon had Liddy but all Trump’s hacks are still loyal to him in truth-even it turns out Flynn who had cooperated more than anyone; certainly the Coffee Boy never left the reservation. Michael Cohen is clearly the exception not the rule-and he serves a three year sentence for crimes Trump directed him to do and that served not Cohen’s benefit but his own.

However while Manafort’s lies hurt Mueller’s ability to get to the full truth of Russian Collusion, Gates’ own cooperation has been very helpful-thanks to him we know among many things that Trump himself told Gates about more leaked emails from Wikileaks when they were on the way to the airport in late July, 2016.

Rick Gates, a top adviser, said that the campaign was “planning a press strategy, a communications campaign, and messaging based on the possible release” of Hillary Clinton emails by WikiLeaks. After receiving a call during a drive to La Guardia Airport, Mr. Trump “told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming.” The details are redacted, and the redactions are marked “harm to ongoing matter,” perhaps related to the prosecution of Roger Stone. Mr. Mueller has alleged that Mr. Stone, a Trump affiliate, sought to obtain information about WikiLeaks’ planned release of anti-Clinton material and pass that information to the campaign.

End of FN

“To me, the outcome could not appear more grim for Manafort. After practicing federal criminal law for 40 years as a prosecutor and defense lawyer, I had already thought the pending charges against him looked dead bang. They were assembled by some of the most high-powered prosecutors in Washington. They were intricately documented. Worse, they are unlikely to endear a jury to Manafort, who allegedly used his ill-gotten gains to pay for fancy cars, clothes from tony men’s shops, and the upkeep on several houses. But as bad as things appeared, the addition of Gates as a witness ensures that prosecutors will be able to offer live narration for what’s on all that dry paper. As I see it, Manafort’s eventual trials will be little more than what is referred to in the trade as a “slow plea”—a milk run to a certain conviction.”

“Nonetheless, Manafort has announced his intention to fight on, making him the only key defendant in Mueller’s investigation not to plead guilty and cooperate with authorities (leaving aside the 13 recently indicted Russians who are unlikely ever to be seen again on U.S. soil). It’s intriguing therefore to speculate on the thinking of the Manafort legal team, which, I believe, must be focused on the hope of a presidential pardon, despite the many risks and contingencies that such a strategy entails.”

And Trump’s lawyer did put that feeler out on a pardon. A question that begs: has Trump communicated with Manafort recently-including via an intermediary-that he should ‘hang tough’ as help-a pardon-is on its way?

FN: Manafort ultimately got 7 and a half years which was actually on the low side of the range of punishments he could have faced. Cohen who turned on Trump got a sentence-3 years-on the high end of the range. While he’s in prison Trump is lauded as ‘Mr. President’ and the MSM sniffs at the idea that he’s a criminal and should be impeached. Yes he should also be in prison but the attempt by everyone from Pelosi to Donnie Deutsch to mollify impeachment advocates with the idea he’s likely to face prosecution if he loses in 2020 is risible.

#JusticeDenied.

Manafort clearly has done everything in his power to get a pardon-wether or not Trump’s lawyers ultimately think it’s a good idea is another question but suffice to say that if he doesn’t ultimately get one it’s not for not protecting the fake ‘President’ enough.

End of FN

Manafort has been a person of interest for U.S. authorities for a long time-in the kind of interest we’re talking about here you’d much rather be uninteresting.

Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported that in the spring of 2015, U.S. spy agencies captured Russian officials talking about Manafort.

The Russians were already discussing him in  the spring of 2015-a year prior to him joining the Trump campaign. What they were saying-this the spy agencies, of course, know while we don’t-would be very interesting. Was it in the context of policies, more was he already being mentioned in the same breath as Trump-who back then few could yet imagine him being the GOP nominee?

“After Manafort left the Trump campaign, the Journal said, American investigators obtained a warrant to conduct surveillance of Manafort as part of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Probable cause would have been required to obtain the warrant, but the underlying evidence, which Mueller now must have, has never been revealed. So, given all this, what is Manafort’s best option to save his skin?”

Clearly Manafort and his team have shut the door marked Cooperate.

“Someone who prefers short odds would say that Manafort should “go the hangout road,” a term used during Watergate by President Nixon and his closest aides to describe the unpalatable option of telling the whole truth and accepting the consequences. But Manafort, by pleading “not guilty” and insisting on going to trial—and by going out of his way last week to criticize Gates for cooperating—is sticking to a strategy that on the surface appears likely to find him living out most of his remaining days behind bars.”

So what’s Manafort’s angle?

“Over the years, I’ve seen many potential defendants decide to just shut up and take it for a variety of reasons: fear for their lives, in mob, gang, and drug cases; a determination to be a “stand-up guy,” unwilling to lessen their time inside at the cost of others; and, on occasion, an unrelenting hatred for the prosecutors. Manafort, no doubt, may fall within these last two categories. F.B.I. agents armed with a search warrant, after all, picked the lock on his Alexandria, Virginia, apartment and invaded it last July, making off with a cache of business documents, folders, and computer files. (One of the damning allegations in last week’s new charges: among the documents the Feds found last summer were items the government had previously subpoenaed but which Manafort had claimed, in a letter, did not exist.)”

But as Scott Turow goes to explain rejecting a plea deal and going to trial is a very risk venture as you lose the automatic sentence reductions that come from “acceptance of responsibility” and helping prosecutors. But not only do you lose the sentence reductions which are automatic for coopering, but you may still yet be compelled to testify later.

“It is common these days for prosecutors to call convicted defendants before a grand jury—with the threat of even more prison time added for perjury if the defendant’s statements contradict evidence the prosecutor has in hand.”

So what is Manafort’s game? Turrow suggests he’s aiming at an audience of one-our faux ‘President’ himself. It’s fair to assume that while Michael Flynn certainly has a story to tell   and Michael Cohen clearly has many stories to tell, Manafort has the kind of story to tell that will simply destroy the illegitimate ‘President.’

FN: In retrospect we have to say ‘would have destroyed’ as Manafort didn’t tell it-what he told was deliberately misleading.

“Robert Mueller, presumably, still doesn’t know what a truthful Manafort would have to say—but Trump does. If Manafort is, in fact, playing for a pardon—a route that even disgraced former N.S.A. chief Michael Flynn, whom Trump steadily defended, didn’t take—it would speak volumes about how damaging Manafort’s testimony could be to Trump or to those close to him, such as his son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. If Manafort’s truthful testimony was simply going to absolve all of them of conspiring with the Russians, he could have made a deal long ago. Such testimony would have been as likely to earn an eventual pardon, once the smoke cleared. Manafort’s problem, then, seems to be that Mueller may already have evidence of collusion that threatens to endanger him, his former colleagues on the campaign, and possibly Trump himself.”

“A pardon, on the other hand, would solve most of Manafort’s problems. It would not only keep Manafort out of the penitentiary, but could also relieve Manafort of the prospect of forfeiting most of his riches, a punishment the latest indictments seek. Indeed, as president, Trump could encourage the I.R.S. to go easy on Manafort in reaching a deal on the taxes, penalties, and interest Manafort owes on $30 million in unreported income, a benefit that even the best-disposed prosecutor has no power to offer.”

“But such a gambit is a bet that the GOP holds onto the House. If the Democrats win the House-as they are heavily favored to do  pardoning Manafort leads to immediate impeachment hearings in the House with Manafort himself as first witness called. ”

FN: Today is July 29, 2019-a year and a day after I initially wrote this chapter and it remains to be seen if anything would get Pelosi to agree to impeach Trump. It does appear that the Judiciary Dems have now begun something like an inquiry.

But if this is so-and who wants to say Laurence Tribe is wrong?-that’s through the Judiciary, not a full House vote. Perhaps if we get to 218 they can do a full House vote to further codify it? And presumably at some point these impeachment inquiry supporting Dems could support an actual impeachment vote to send to the Senate? As some are finally arguing it might be that the optimal political outcome is to make Mitch McConnell acquit ‘President Trump’-that could put som Purple State GOPers up for reelection in 2020 in a tough spot.

End of FN.

“Manafort, therefore, seems to be playing the long game. One of the ironies of Manafort choosing to hang tough (instead of choosing to “hang out”) is that it literally prolongs the probe, since the Mueller team can’t be expected to close shop before Manafort goes to trial. The earliest he could be pardoned would be after the midterms. Even then, there would still be the risk that Manafort would be summoned to testify—meaning that for such a gambit to work, both for Manafort and Trump, the president would also have to put an end to the overall investigation by firing Mueller and instructing the Department of Justice not to replace him. At the same time, how could Trump exonerate Manafort without pardoning Trump’s son and son-in-law, who might also be at risk? As cover, Trump might well consider pardoning everyone who might be involved, even those he now might view as squealers, such as Flynn and Gates. Such a radical maneuver, however, would depend on Trump’s willingness to face a furious Congress and, come 2020, an apoplectic electorate.”

“Another flaw in planning for a pardon: Manafort must gamble that the Democrats don’t retake the House this November. If they did, Trump couldn’t pardon Manafort unless he was willing to see Manafort called as the first witness in the impeachment inquiry the Democrats would be certain to commence. Looking at the twisted road to a pardon, it’s understandable why defendants like Flynn and Gates decided to just cut a deal.”

In short, like the faux President himself, Manafort is betting on a straight flush.

FN: Wether he still draws this straight flush remains to be seen-at this point  with so much breaking in favor of this lawless, illegitimate ‘President’ why bet against this? Our last hope is the Dem Congress if they fail to impeach him before the 2020 election we can officially declare the system has failed us.

 

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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