I just saw this helpful reminder on Twitter, courtesy of a law professor and former federal prosecutor:
“The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits corruptly offering a thing of value to a foreign official in order to try to obtain business.”
That is, if you bribe a foreign official, even if the business deal is overseas, you’ve committed a federal crime. Whoopsie!
I wonder if Donald is going to do a little house hunting while he’ s in Argentina …
I suppose that is the traditional place for Nazis to hide out when things start to crash down around them.
I think a Chinese Finger Trap would be sufficient to prevent his escape.
I read/heard so much crap yesterday about how the tanking Manafort situation was bad for Mueller, blah blah blah. All I could think was “Do you really think Mueller didn’t know Manafort was singing like a canary? Do you really think he didn’t have a plan for it? And a back up plan? And a back up to the back up?”
I’m sure he has bad days. I’m sure a few things in this bizarre situation have taken him by surprise.
But I’m also quite sure this motley crew of two bit intellects and cheesy con men are vastly out matched and out maneuvered on every level every day.
I too remain in awe of him, even if it isn’t a fair fight.
And he also needs a round of applause for keeping his cool. Not going on talk shows. Not leaking. Not being a general douchebag like Starr was. Low profile and professional is such a low bar that hasn’t been met by anyone but him in two years.
Benjamin Wittes put out an “Emergency Edition” Lawfare podcast, in which he put forth an interesting observation:
The Mueller team is handling this comparatively mundane charge of Cohen lying to Congress, yet in the past Mueller has hived off plenty of other prosecutions that were more “glamorous” and more complicated (i.e. Maria Butina), but that he perceived to not be directly related to his mandate. The fact that he (Mueller) is retaining this relatively minor charge and its attendant plea deal could indicate that Cohen’s cooperation is even more significant than we might have thought.
That podcast also reminded me that we haven’t heard anything from or about Allen Weisselberg since his witness immunity was announced. I really want to know what he’s been telling the Mueller team.
Nobody saw today’s Cohen plea coming. Mueller’s team is not tight, it’s hermetically sealed.
I think those who see the Manafort situation as a big set-back for Mueller have forgotten that this is a man who took on John Gotti and won. He may be disappointed that Manafort was not wholly cooperative, but I doubt very much that anything significant depended on Manafort being a good boy. I am sure the Mueller team has other sources to take Manafort’s place if he can’t be used as originally intended. Mueller’s experience taking on organized crime (more organized than this group of clowns) has, I think, served him very well in his current undertaking.
Whatever happened to Fotheringay-Phipps?
This question occurred to me while reading about this Felix Sater/Trump Tower Moscow/Putin Penthouse business. I was thinking can anyone still say with a straight face that there’s no evidence of collusion. Then I thought of Barmy. That motherfucker never breaks character. Now I see it’s been over two months since he posted.
Mueller’s boys know so much more than team Trump. I mean, that’s kinda how these interviews work anyway. By the time FBI and DoJ prosecutors are sitting your ass down in front of recorded mics, they already know the answers to the questions. They just wanna know what you’re gonna say. And they go through the motions of asking questions just in case you happen to drop a name on them they haven’t heard before, or in case you drop new information on someone they’ve already known about and talked to. But idiots gotta know that when they mic you up and record you with your defense attorney at your side (or not), they already know the truth.
Does anyone think that Michael Cohen is authorizes to hand out 50 million of Trump’s dollars without Trump’s approval?
Given that I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Trump doesn’t even have that sort of money, I think it’s safe to say that anything over $100 has to go by Trump.
This really is the best illustration of how intellectually bankrupt the right wing and the Republican Party have become. Their hero’s administration is a venal, corrupt, stupid agglomeration of two-bit con-men and petty criminals, and is completely outmatched by the actual wheels of the government they’re supposed to be in charge of. It’s not only infuriating, it’s EMBARRASSING!
I could ditto your post a hundred times. 
So perfect!!
I don’t believe Mueller ever needed Manafort, and I don’t think he needed Trump’s stupid [DEL]lies[/DEL] answers in response to the questions Mueller posed on the conspiracy issues. I think he simply wanted to insulate the investigation from accusations that he didn’t give Trump ample opportunity to answer the questions – and to do it honestly. But it cannot have been a surprise in any way to Mueller that these two pathological liars would resort to type. More importantly, Trump’s endless dithering around with the questions bought Mueller more time to perfect his case(s).
When we read the Mueller indictment against the Russians, we appreciate the excruciating detail of the factual information he will possess, even when such information is really, really hard to obtain. Manafort found out the hard way that Mueller knows when he is sleeping and knows when he’s awake after Mueller busted him for violating the gag order and then the terms of his bail agreement by witness tampering in the case before Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Keeping tabs on what Manafort and Trump were up to was child’s play for Mueller. You’d think these characters would learn, and understand that Mueller will know all. But no.
I love that Mueller himself signed Cohen’s plea agreement today.
If I were Mueller, I’d have been going home every night for months and laughing my ass off into a pillow somewhere in my basement.
Mueller’s fondness for the element of surprise is well known. I’ll bet he had a great day today. No one has earned it more.
The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but oh! how they grind.
Maybe he can pick up a little compound from that nice Mr. Hilter…
I just want to note that two seperate posts about “back channel” communications did not provoke even *one *juvenile, smutty double intender! Proud of you guys!
Is this a reference to the $50M penthouse suite supposedly offered to Putin? Because that’s its PRICE, not its intrinsic value. And it’s certainly not $50M of the America-hating fuckstick’s* money. I have a stale crescent roll sitting in my kitchen right now that I’m putting a $50M price tag on to any comer who ponys up the dosh. Should the dog get up on the counter and eat it, I highly doubt that the IRS would look kindly on the $50M deduction in my 2019 tax return.
*Sorry; that’s just how I spell and say that word these days. Folks in my bridge club are FURIOUS.
Trump once cashed a $.13 check sent to him by Spy Magazine.
I’m sure that so long as it can’t be proved that Michael Cohen went to Prague, F-P will believe there is no evidence of collusion.
There was that dwarf in Prague, seeking a place to hide, and asking if anyone would cache a small Czech.