I really think this is important, so I’m adding to your post. This lady understands America and its core ideals and gives me great hope they are not lost. She openly states she did not want to convict Manafort (going into the trial) because she’s so pro-Trump, but that Manafort “broke the law”. That’s a lady who understands the Rule of Law. That’s actually refreshing.
I have no idea, but let me take a stab at her thinking (and possibly many others).
If the police one day decide to put 30 cops on patrol in my neighborhood to catch people for speeding/stop signs, and do this day in day out, and don’t do this in any other neighborhood (even though lots of people in lots of neighborhoods speed), it’s not unreasonable to consider that a “witch hunt” even though the police are only charging people with legitimately breaking the law and there are several people in the neighborhood who speed/don’t stop. In this juror’s mind, that’s what witch hunt means to her, and even still, the evidence showed guilt so she convicted. I don’t agree, but that’s my take.
I’ve never considered people might view the Mueller probe (“witch hunt”) that way. I’ve always thought witch hunt to mean what the President thinks it means - it’s all made up, nothing to see (i.e., no one ever sped, ever!!!).
The thing I take away is “witch hunt” didn’t overshadow/taint the evidence presented by Mueller’s team against Manafort, as you also noted.
I work for a lot of wealthy people in New York real estate and finance. And guys you’ve never heard of get indicted on federal charges like this all the time. Because they got caught. Usually because someone told on them. And the feds are relentless once they’re on to you. You’re right, it’s not a witch hunt, it’s the feds doing what they do. If an illicit transaction gets media attention, they WILL investigate it.
My thought on the traffic cops analogy is if one of your neighbors was a school bus driver for special needs children that had a reputation for driving drunk, maybe the police would pay special attention to your neighborhood. And it might suck to get caught up in it, but that’s the breaks. It actually happens to people that live near nightclubs and such. You learn to drive carefully,
The point I was trying to make with the above, is that President of the United States is a job of incredible importance that requires great integrity and we have the right to expect him to be beyond reproach. Any hint of wrongdoing on the part of that officeholder should be taken seriously. We should not be turning a blind eye to tax fraud on the part of the President because other people have gotten away with it.
I didn’t see this yesterday, but this seems relatively conclusive:
If Steele was wrong in every reference of Cohen, then that’s pretty damning of the dossier, unless every Cohen reference came from the same source (which, I would have to review, but it seems pretty unlikely).
They don’t need to. They have actual felon (not be the confused with illusionary felon Hillary Clinton) on trial next month for the ACTUAL shit - the foreign lobbying. This case was just the set up for the punchline.
Hell, must be something he’s not guilty of. And doesn’t the whole “went to Prague” thing predate the revelations that the Russians came here? So, they didn’t try to hide it, but maybe that’s because they figured they didn’t have to?
Subterfuge and skulduggery to win elections, is that some sort of crime, now?
Let’s remember that truth isn’t truth. According to Michael Cohen, “I’m very proud to have served Donald J. Trump for all these years, and I’ll continue to support him.”
Maybe Cohen was in Prague. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it was Paris and not Prague. But I’m not going to assume what Cohen says is true: even if he totally sells out Trump, I’d like to see some corroboration of his claims, whether it is about his innocence or Trump’s guilt.
It’s not uncommon for people to make plea deals that don’t involve cooperation. The prosecution gets a guaranteed conviction and the defendant gets a reduced sentence. Everyone wins. So it’s not like there’s any question as to why Cohen would make a plea deal if he wasn’t going to cooperate.
The only question then is why not cooperate and get an even better deal. My guess is some combination of 1) much of what Cohen might say about Trump is possibly (probably?) protected by attorney-client privilege and not subject to cooperation, 2) a lot can be gleaned via texts & emails etc and doesn’t require cooperation, and 3) Cohen is probably thought of as a very unreliable source to begin with. (Worth noting that a juror discussing the Manafort deliberations said the jury disregarded Gates’ testimony entirely and convicted Manafort based on documents alone.) In light of this it’s possible that the prosecutors were not willing to offer Cohen much additional leniency for cooperating, such that Cohen had little incentive to do it.
