Fusion GPS is an American investigative company who were paid by the hour, choosing their own means of collecting information.
The Russian government is a foreign agency with good reason to try and arrange a quid-pro-quo.
The receipt of foreign goods statute exists to prevent Americans from having their loyalty strained. It does not prevent one from, for example, purchasing a Volvo at an American car dealership, to use in your campaign as a vehicle for transporting posters. It does prevent one from accepting free Volvos from a Swedish diplomat, because he wants you to be favorable to his government after the election.
Now obviously, one could always structure things in such a way that you can say that “well I’m just paying a disinterested third party for some product that happened to be produced in a foreign state”, just as one can structure a series of payments to all be less than $10k try and evade reporting laws. If you’re discovered and its provable that it was structured in that way, then you’re liable for the crime. But if it wasn’t structured, and you’re really just purchasing goods from a local vendor who happens to source materials internationally, that’s not a crime.
Imagine, 5YL… Imagine if, and like you I’m just theorizing here… what if the President’s own son agreed to meet with a Russian official to discuss the Russians governments “support of Mr. Trump” in an email chain entitled “Russia - Clinton - Private and Confidential”, this meeting supposedly taking place at the Trump campaign HQ (Trump Tower) including Paul Manafort (fucked), Jared Kushner (likely fucked), and Don Jr (definitely fucked), which was about the Trump campaign coordinating campaign messaging with the Russians, including the expectation of receipt of “incriminating” evidence against Hillary Clinton?
The neat thing is that people can quibble here about whether they think what Don Jr did was legal or illegal but the only view that matters is Mueller’s and he’s unlikely to make any move without solid evidence in place. So if he does go after Don Jr, the boy is toast. And unlike the Flynns, Daddy is unlikely to cop a plea to save his son (or son-on-law).
I don’t feel sorry for him, but I would have preferred that he spilled each and every bean that were ever there to be spilled, truthfully and fulsomely, so that Mueller could just go ahead and arrest everyone.
And, in particular, I would have wanted for Manafort to serve as a witness against Trump. The treason statute requires two witnesses. Manafort would clearly be one. Gates or maybe Stone could serve as a second - I’m not sure - but you probably need at least Manafort in order to go for treason.
Lest we forget: Mike Flynn is still waiting in the wings.
There’s a lot of speculation about why Manafort apparently lied freely and without ceasing. There’s the ‘he expects a pardon theory,’ the ‘he fears Russian oligarchs more than he fears US prison’ theory, and the ‘he’s a con man born and bred and simply lies all the time because he thinks, against all the evidence, that he’ll get away with it’ theory.
I incline to the third, with touches of the first. Time will tell, I guess.
He began advising Trump (according to Reuters) in February 2016. And of course he had Russian connections earlier (including the infamous RT dinner with Putin the previous December).
I’m not sure about ‘cut loose’–do we have solid information that Mueller will not call him as a witness in any proceeding? In any case, he’ll be sentenced three weeks from today, I believe.
“Scrambling”. And those “quietly working” prosecutors, solemnly building their case. This whole sentence reads like a Trump-Russia proponent’s rendition that Scared Donny is afraid of the inevitable hammer of justice coming to lay him down flat by dutiful truth-seekers.