While unlikely, another theory would be that Cohen didn’t want to do a cooperation agreement, since if he has a deal like that in place, it’s a pretty easy argument to make that he’s simply saying whatever it takes, to keep himself out of jail. The trustworthiness of his statements take a hard hit. And so, for the sake of the nation, he decided to plea of his own free will, so that he could help the investigation without having to have his word doubted.
I was wondering if Cohen sees the writing on the wall with so much scandal and anti-Trump sentiment, and that by going full-on anti-Trump himself he hopes for a pardon from whatever Democrat is elected in 2020.
Plus, the President doesn’t have to wait for a finding of guilt to issue a pardon, anyway. That precedent’s already been set by Ford’s pardon of Nixon.
I listed up all of the crimes that I was aware of that Trump has likely or conceivably broken and got 19 different crimes, several with multiple possible counts, in entirely unrelated matters. (I’m hoping to write this up on my blog - we’ll see.)
But I’ll damned if the man isn’t prolific at crime. I just happened across this, when looking to see if there had been anything I had missed to do with the Trump Foundation investigation:
It looks like Trump took a payment through the Foundation from a pro-EU Ukrainian affiliated with known money launderer Khrapunov, to give a speech (and possibly other things). Since he proceeded to use money from his charity fund to pay for his campaign, this would be another (and fairly readily proved) instance of foreign donations, with possible secondary issues of FARA if he talked to any politicians in the US about Ukrainian support (before switching stance the other way to back Russia, later).
This is a pretty sobering article, but it’s the latest among several that I’ve read in the last 6 months which makes clear that our election systems are vulnerable to hacks, and we can assume that there are political adversaries out there who are willing to test the systems out.
I almost get the sense that his mind was made up that he would convict on some but not all counts. He knew the other jurors would probably surround him if he went full-on Alex Jones so his 8 convictions were a compromise of sorts.
I know there was at least 1 Trump backer on the jury. She is the person who revealed that one guy was the hold out on all 10 counts. She said she was behind Trump all the way and did not want to find Manafort guilty. To her credit she voted based on the trial evidence and not her politics. I assume there were other Trump voters on the jury.
I’d assume they’re a fairly even mix of democratic and republican voters? When 10 people all agree on charges, it’s generally fair to assume they all did okay. When one person is the standout in all those charges, things get a little suspicious.
Northern Virginia is a pretty blue area , it’s full of federal workers. On the other hand there are also a lot of defense contractors there and those workers probably tilt more to the right .
IANAL, but my understanding is that the hung jury on the 10 counts won’t really affect the sentence Had Manafort been convicted of all 18, the sentences would have run concurrently anyway, as I understand it, so in terms or how long he sits in prison, 8 convictions is as good as 18. The lone holdout probably expended a lot of effort on a stand that didn’t really change the immediate outcome for Manafort. However, perhaps it will make some difference in the appeals process.
The juror who went public is still calling the investigationa witch hunt despite voting to convict one of the witches. She is still planning to vote for the lead witch in 2020.
Understood, but I’m not sure if the juror in question was fully cognizant of that. I get the sense that the juror was expressing his compassionate conservatism, though I admit upfront that there’s no way to know what the juror’s motives were without hearing it from him directly.
In a way, she’s not entirely wrong; it is a witch hunt, in the sense that going after Manafort was clearly intended to build a case against Trump. I’m sure that the feds have known for ages about Manafort’s suspicious dealings with Ukraine - it’s not like he was really trying to hide them. But I get the feeling that in national security and federal law enforcement circles, Manafort was considered an Ukrainian problem - until he became an American problem.
That’s my armchair take on it too. One of the lawyers I follow on Twitter made some snarky comment about “if only the jurors knew how little it mattered!” I imagine the holdout thought he was having more impact than he actually was.
I’m also cheered that the dedicated Trump supporter who went on Fox was admitted her political leanings and said she still had to vote to convict based on the facts. I think that’s a good sign for future cases. Like the one Manafort faces in about a month in Virginia.
ETA: A quip I stole from Twitter: “Apparently, witches don’t run very fast.”
in a way the fact that he was not convicted on 10 counts means it was not a rubber stamp by the jury. Although that is blunted a bit because it was 11-1 on all 10 counts with the 1 guy holding out.