Manafort won’t turn, IMO.
The whole thing to him is a personal accomplishment much, much more than a vague idealogical victory or even “helping his team”.
He won’t come out and admit that what he accomplished wasn’t really his doing, but the efforts of others and he was merely a conduit or a cog in the machine. I think that Manafort wants desperately to believe that it’s his machine.
Maybe. None of his ilk seem to me to be likely to do a single day longer in prison than they need to.
Understood. But it wouldn’t make sense to ask (as WC did) “why is Mueller trying so hard to flip him?” if the entire basis for the assumption that he’s trying to flip him is that you think it’s consistent with what he’s trying to do. The premise of that question seemed to be that there’s no big need to flip him but that it’s apparent that he’s trying to do it anyway.
The Atlantic has an interesting write-up on Paul Manafort: The Plot Against America
He’s made himself some pretty powerful enemies. He might be quite pleased to be safe in prison.
Seth Abramson’s twitter feed implies he has a lot of info that could incriminate Trump.
Manaforts testimony could shed some light on the infamous Trump Tower meeting. I think that Trump’s minions have kept him out of the loop enough to give him plausibile deniability - and because they know Trump has a big mouth and a propensity for fucking up. It’s Stupid Watergate. And he ran his mouth a couple of times , telegraphing that he might have known leaks were coming - but I don’t know if that’ll be enough.
But I’m betting they’ll be able to pin some collusion on at least some of them, although I’m not sure what actual charges would be. But I’m not sure about Trump. It’s possible he doesn’t know anything because he doesn’t know ANYTHING. If you define “know” as having a solid grasp on the facts surrounding a particular subject. Even if it happened right before his eyes, the story would’ve rewritten itself the second it hit his brain.
But I bet they come up with an obstruction of justice charge the size of the large print edition of War and Peace and that they charge lots of people on his staff. Not sure if they will try to indict him.If they pay half as much attention to his finances as they did Manaforts, someone’s in trouble - especially if they start looking at all his loan applications. But I don’t know if they’d go after him, his kids, or if they’d just refer over to state and federal investigators in NY
Aaaand yet another Twitter tantrum…
Meuller just filed a motion requesting all charges against Gates be dropped.
Okay, somebody interpret this, please.
Likely Gates just gave Mueller what he wanted on Manafort or someone else. So let the little fish go.
Doesn’t actually say that in the linked source.
It says dropping charges 5-10 and 15-32 in the superceding indictment.
Don’t know where the “all charges” might be coming from.
So now Gates doesn’t have the protection of federal prison to look forward to. Good luck, buddy. And hire a food taster, tout suite.
ETA: Never mind. He’s still probably going to prison.
Correct, he’s actually dropping “charges,” not “all charges.”
Stay away from umbrellas.
Trump announces his reelection 2020 campaign and names Brad Parscale as campaign manager. That name should sound familiar because he is the Cambridge Analytica guy.
That should be fine. It’s not like Trump has a habit of hiring people with a history of questionable interaction with Russia to his campaign teams.
Right. The point is that the implications are very different between one and the other.
JohnT made a mistake, either in reading or understanding or both. Doesn’t seem to have taken it well, when pointed out (let alone being forthright in acknowledging his error). But it’s worth pointing out nonetheless.
OK, where do you see JohnT not taking it well? That was his last post to this thread.
Also, the dropped subset of charges were dropped without prejudice (i.e. Mueller can re-file those charges at any time).
Obvious inference: Gates is being offered a break if he remains cooperative. If he tries to stonewall, or, worse, lie he’s at best facing all the original charges or at worst facing all the original charges plus additional perjury charges.