And the final big revelation is on page 30, where it says that Manafort was actively promoting people for appointment to the White House up until at least early 2017, via “intermediaries”.
So whether Trump is an agent of Russia or not, it’s reasonably possible that some of the people in the administration work for Russia.
I’m not sure corruption is limited to Russia. Linda McMahon, for instance, paid a lot of money to Manafort’s PAC, he told Trump to hire her, and now she’s the administer of the Small Business Administration. I don’t know of any speculated connection between her and the Kremlin.
Not me. I’m sure it was something like a mockumentary I saw with Danny DeVito playing a New Jersey congressional candidate who was arrested for accepting a bribe after an FBI sting.
FBI Agent: [Showing a briefcase open and filled strapped cash] Now, we are giving you this money because we want you to do something for us.
DeVito: Yeah, yeah.
F A: We give you the money now, you do the thing after you’re elected.
Assuming Trump is ultimately arrested, and one can only hope, I wonder what the Republican propagandist lines will be.
Something like:
1 - Yeah Trump was a criminal, but the Democrats made us vote for him because Hillary was so awful!
2 - Yeah Trump was a criminal, but the Dems are too!
3 - Trump is not a criminal, this is all part of the deep state conspiracy!
4 - Trump is not a criminal, he’s simply going undercover in prison to expose the deep state conspiracy!
5 - Trump was a criminal, but he was still the greatest president ever. We should have forgiven his crimes because MAGA!
Possibly some flavor of fraud? Even if there wasn’t a law broken, trying to game a poll to make yourself look more popular than you are is (a) not a great look, and (b) so very, very Trump.