Key paragraph:
Mr. Trump’s lawyers realized on Saturday that they had not been provided a full accounting after The New York Times published an article describing Mr. McGahn’s extensive cooperation with Mr. Mueller’s office. After Mr. McGahn was initially interviewed by the special counsel’s office in November, Mr. Trump’s lawyers never asked for a complete description of what Mr. McGahn had said, according to a person close to the president.
They have a lot of people claiming it was bad strategy to cooperate with the investigation. But I say that’s only true because they have something to hide.
Federal prosecutors are about to fry one of Trump’s fixers in Michael Cohen. I get the sense that we’re about to see another name more frequently: Allen Weissberg. I’m taking a wild gander that the feds want to know where Trump’s money goes, and besides his moronic children, they want to speak to people who might actually know the money trail.
Manafort jury appears close as they ask what to do "If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, how should we fill out the jury verdict sheet for that count, and what does that mean for the final verdict?”
Most are interpreting that as they have come to a consensus on 17 of 18 counts and are having problems with one. I guess it could also be interpreted as saying that they are unable to come to a consensus on any counts though?
Also, there might be a Cohen plea deal by the end of the day. Not a good day for Trump, though his last good day was the one before election day.
But if it all comes down to the President can’t be indicted, what the hell do we do? Does not look like congress will impeach, and I doubt we pick up enough seats in the senate to do so.
No. The jury’s note was pretty explicit, in my view. They made a point of mentioning “a single count.” I think the far more common interpretation is the one you first expressed. They’re hung on one count only and have reached verdicts as to all other counts. Given the state of the documentary evidence alone, the most likely scenario is guilty on all counts and possibly hung on one. My further educated guess is that it’s one lone person who’s holding out on that sole count.
However, I’ve seen some crazy stuff happen because judges assumed they knew how a jury had decided on the settled counts. Best for a judge to be patient and let the jury work through their issues on all counts if at all possible. With this judge? Might be too much to expect.
Manafort jury note: “If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, how should we fill in the verdict form for** that count**? And what does that mean for the final verdict?"
One count is what the note is about, not all of them. Or the foreman is bad at English.
One other thing worth mentioning re the “single count” issue: The note garnered a 5-minute conference between the jury, the judge and the parties, undoubtedly to clarify exactly what the note meant. Based on the brevity of the conference, we can assume it’s only one count, and the judge gave them the standard instruction to keep on keepin’ on.
His drawers are going to look like a duck shit in them. I think 1000x more for the Cohen plea than the Manafort verdict.
I subscribe to the guilty on all counts but one holdout on one count theory. As satisfying as all guilty verdicts will be, I don’t see the impact on Donald. These are Manafort’s crimes, unrelated to the Russia affair. Sure, Manafort may start singing in order to reduce his sentence, but I think it more likely he gets pardoned.
I’m not worried about that. There will be enough charges against Manafort held in abeyance at the state level that are, uhh, unpardonable. Manafort is toast even with a pardon.
I don’t view the Manafort situation as separate from the Mueller situation, not at all. Mueller hung onto that case for a reason. I think Manafort is extremely tied up in the Russia conspiracy aspect of Mueller’s probe. What Manafort is being tried for in this trial and the next are the “kompromat.” Manafort’s need for money and to make himself “whole” with Oleg Deripaska are Manafort’s motivations for cooperating with the Russians in giving them access to Trump and the Trump campaign.