I think the ultimate Fox/GOP/MAGAbot takeaway from this interview is that poor old Manafort only faced charges because of his association with the Trump witch-hunt. And that it was just some nothingburger tax evasion. Not criminal, nothing to see here, pay some fines and go about your day. Heck, if I had that kind of money, I’d be evading taxes like a motherfucker too. MAGA!
Kinda like what Trump himself said - it was a witch hunt because you could convict a whole lot of people on charges like these.
The flip side of that argument, of course, is something Atrios has been hitting on for awhile: that there’s a metric ton of white-collar crime out there that nobody’s trying to prosecute.
Now that a handful of people are getting charged for some of this stuff, other people are whining about it. Manafort was convicted of some pretty massive and blatant tax fraud. The real problem isn’t that he got nabbed, the real problem is that the GOP has done its best to strip the IRS of resources to go after rich tax cheats, while requiring them to direct their resources towards people who might be misusing the Earned Income Tax Credit.
I have five dollars cash American that says Cohen turns back and says the “candidate for federal office” was Pence.
That’d be hilarious, but I doubt it. From the second paragraph of the criminal information on Cohen:
If that were true, and he turned white with fear, would anyone be able to tell?
Why do they even bother hiding the name when there’s no question who it is?
Individual-1/Pence 2020!
Thank you. 
So Hannity can claim that Cohen is going to jail for helping Hillary Clinton?
On the topic of people associated with the Russian Election Interference investigation going to jail, I can’t remember, but was this patriotic freedom-fighter, railing against the oppressive, outrageous cover-up, uncovered by Mueller?
THAT was from the filing and does anyone have a legal explanation for that? It feels like trolling to me.
Cohen used the phrase ‘candidate for federal office’ while reading from his notes, presumably to ensure he got it exactly right.
So here is my theory: the phrase was Cohen last offer to Trump, 'I’ll protect you and throw Pence under the bus if you meet my demands." Trump thought about it over night, decided - or more likely was advised - against it, and rejected it via Twitter. THEN Davis went on the morning shows and confirmed that negotiations are over.
The only I can’t fit into this is that GoFundMe page. What is that? Unless … maybe it was one final offer, dropping Cohen’s price?
Insert several rolling with laughter smilies
Make America Greedy Again?
I think – something I’ve heard in the firehose of news – that it’s legal protocol to not use names of people who aren’t being indicted.
On the basis of some Trump flack who was just on NPR, the push back appears to be that the payoffs happened; whether or not Trump lied on Air Force One is a matter of interpretation; but the payoffs were perfectly legal campaign expenses.
A former counsel to the Federal Election Commission who was on PBS last night said quite the contrary, and the fact that Trump made the payments personally instead of from campaign funds – which is what he said in today’s Fox interview – actually makes it worse.
That’s probably actually true. I work for lots of wealthy and “connected” individuals and they all have their own email/network servers. And the guys that set them up are good and the security is phenomenal. That’s WHY they have private servers, they need better security than they can get with ISP servers.
The Republicans always implied some sort of amateur rinky-dink set-up whenever they said “private server” but that’s probably not true in this case. That’s why they continually excused Mike Pences use of his AOL account - the false implication was that an AOL account was more secure than a “private server. Even though Pence’s account actually did get hacked
Good, I hope they come down on him hard. And I hope they go after him and Trump for his blackmail/ extortion attempts on Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzenski. Which I think about sometimes - they have been very quiet publicly about that incident but I find it hard to believe that they let it go, I’ve always hoped they were quietly working with prosecutors
That’s true, but OTOH they do prosecute a lot of white collar crime and they send lots of people that you’ve never heard of to jail. Now I will agree that these high powered real estate and finance guys are all a little dirty, and they know they key is to stay low key and stay out of the spotlight.
Prosecutors aren’t going to tear up their offices looking for random wrongdoing without knowing where to look. But if they get any hint of where the wrongdoing lies, through a public news story or a tip by a rival — they will be all over these guys in a relentless take no prisoners fashion -regardless of politics.
As ** jsc1953** says, it’s standard practice for federal prosecutors not to name unindicted parties, even if it’s obvious who they are.
None of this makes the least bit of sense. Read the criminal information on Cohen. The crimes he is accused of (aside from the tax evasion and bank fraud) are all related to the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal payoffs, and those payoffs were directed by and reimbursed by Donald Trump.
You’re welcome.
He’s too delusional to accept that.
Trump thinks flipping “almost ought to be outlawed”:
Yes, Donny. Most people are going to flip rather than go down with your ship. There’s no shame in that*, and, despite what you believe, cooperating with law enforcement should not be illegal.
*(There’s shame in getting into a scenario where flipping is a good option, but flipping itself isn’t shameful.)
And Trump’s opinion of Manafort is consistent – he’s “brave” because he didn’t flip.
There we have it, ladies and gentlemen: *omerta *is the highest law of the land.
Just a courtesy, not a protection of legal rights? I thought so, but there’s still no point if there’s no doubt.