The outlook for Bannon is bleak. He can go to trial, of course, but the vast majority of federal trials result in conviction. He can plead guilty and hope for a slightly lower sentence than if he is convicted by a jury. Largely because of the amount of the alleged fraud – here, prosecutors say, over $25 million – Bannon, if convicted, is looking at a sentence of at least approximately seven to nine years under the federal sentencing guidelines (which are important but not binding on a judge), or slightly less if he accepts responsibility and pleads guilty.
Or Bannon can try to cooperate with the SDNY – which could offer him his best chance at a significant sentencing reduction. In my experience, the SDNY handles cooperation differently than many other prosecutors’ offices. Some prosecutors permit a defendant to cooperate only against certain defendants (typically, his indicted co-conspirators) or only on certain subject matters (usually the charge stated in the original indictment). But in the SDNY, cooperation is all-or-nothing. An SDNY cooperator must admit to every crime he has committed. And the cooperator must give up everything he knows about what others have done – even if the conduct, or the other people, go beyond the original charges in the indictment.
If Bannon goes the cooperation route and fully comes clean, he stands to minimize his own potential prison time. But, to save himself, Bannon will very likely need to give the SDNY the ammunition it needs to take others down too.
You’re a fool if you think you can live your life without sharing sunshine and gladness.
If you think you can live without love, you’re building a wall of sorrow and madness.
You’re building a wall to surround yourself.
You’re just building a wall to protect yourself.
You’re just building a wall to defend yourself.
But you’re building a wall that will break your heart!
From The Selfish Giant animation from 1971, Oscar Wilde really saw through the lousy justifications that the powerful have to keep injustice and selfishness going.
Man, not only is there always a tweet, apparently there’s also always a clip.
Media Matters fires up the Wayback Machine, destination 2019:
Clip at the link above, transcript here:
From the June 24, 2019, YouTube stream of We Build The Wall’s “Wall-A-Thon”
STEPHEN K. BANNON: Welcome back and this is Stephen K. Bannon. We’re off the coast of Saint-Tropez in southern France, in the Mediterranean. We’re on the million-dollar yacht of Brian Kolfage. Brian Kolfage – who took all that money from Build The Wall.
Absolutely. I’ve dropped this link in a couple of other threads but it’s delicious.
The Trump campaign has only authorized one super PAC. All those other groups, some of them run by ex-campaign officials, aren’t authorized. They’re sucking up MAGAbucks and diverting most of it into their own pockets via consulting fees and the like.
The Trump campaign really wants this to stop. So they asked nicely. No one stopped. All these groups are taking in money that would probably otherwise be donated to the real Trump campaign. And Trump can’t stop them.
It’s not just the bad optics of going after groups like Bikers for MAGA and Veterans for Trump. It’s that, thanks to years of Republicans destroying campaign finance law, these groups are completely legal. So feel free to start your own. Thank you Citizens United.
You’re a fool if you think you can live your life without sharing sunshine and gladness.
