Manafort hit with new charge
Mueller has now charged him with obstruction of justice:
The new charges ”” the first public ones against Kilimnik ”” track with allegations Mueller’s team leveled earlier this week that Manafort and an associate tried to influence the testimony of two men involved in a public relations campaign several years ago to buff up the image of Ukraine and its president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.
Legal experts said Mueller’s latest move could be particularly damaging for Manafort, predicting that the judge could soon rescind the former campaign chairman’s current house arrest arrangement.
Once again, the charges have nothing to do with Trump, at least on the face of it. The connection is that it’s hard to believe Manafort would have been charged with anything if Mueller hadn’t seen him as a way to get to Trump. But Manafort—who is always identified in stories as having been Trump’s campaign manager—doesn’t seem to have any beans to spill on Trump, so now it’s just down to Mueller getting Manafort as a stand-in for Trump, his real quarry.
Manafort was indeed Trump’s campaign manager, but not only do the indictments against him have nothing to do with that role, but his tenure as manager was far more fleeting than MSM articles ordinarily let on:
He joined Donald Trump’s presidential campaign team in March 2016 and served as campaign manager from June to August 2016.
I doubt that Manafort has much to give Mueller on Trump. Of course, he can always try to make something up; maybe that’ll work. In the meantime, I refer you to this article by Andrew C. McCarthy from last October, dealing with the previous indictments against Manafort. McCarthy hasn’t yet weighed in on the more recent indictment.
I assume that Mueller’s Marauders are lashing out at Manafort because they were embarrassed by his lawyers.
I don’t know a thing about Manafort. He may, or may not, be a sleaze bag; but regardless, I am rooting for him to rub these charges in Mueller’s face. I would like nothing better than for him to find a way to sue, and have Mueller and his crowd cited for gross over- reach, and misconduct. I can dream.
Mueller appears to be completely out of control, and somehow he just has to be stopped. It seems to me that his crowd just trample over anyone who might give them a path to get Trump–or anyone who stands in the way.
🙁
Charles Krauthammer, the beloved and brilliant Fox News Channel personality who gave up a pioneering career in psychiatry to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning political analyst, on Friday revealed the heartbreaking news that he is in the final stages of a losing battle with cancer.
Artfldgr:
See my post right below this one.
Money laundering and tax avoidance are serious crimes. They’re relatively easy to prove and often prosecuted. A myriad of regulations designed to identify such crimes have been put in place, particularly after 911 but even before that.
Not sure whats so hard to believe about someone being prosecuted for this.
And this has exactly what to do with Mueller’s mission to prove Trump conspired with Mother Russia to rig the 2016 presidential election?
Nice try Manju. The “crimes” that Mueller are using a pretext supposedly occurred around a decade ago. If they existed, and were serious, and easily proven, why were they not?
Of course the most obvious question is, “how do they fit withing Mueller’s portfolio?”.
Oh, oh. No editing option. “as a pretext,”.
Manju:
Once again, you either misunderstand or are feigning misunderstanding.
Of course crimes are crimes and can be prosecuted. But all crimes are not prosecuted, not even close to it. Prosecutors pick and choose, and they do so for many reasons.
Did you actually read the McCarthy link in that last paragraph?
I also refer you to this.
Off topic, but seeing as how our hostess loves her some ballet, I thought she (and y’all) might find this of interest?
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2018/06/for-first-time-in-modern-ballet-history.html
I understand that.
But avoiding taxes on $30 million by disguising income as loans does not strike me as a charge that would go into the discretionary category.
Because the FBI wasn’t aware of the money until 2014, when Yanukovych was removed as President of the Ukraine.
Manju,
Without double standards, you have no standards at all. You’re lusting for Manafort and ignoring the crimes of the Clintons. Seems to me Manafort, Clintons, and hundreds of others are guilty of crimes involving millions if not billions. If so prosecute them all. You are different in that the rule of law only applies to your ideological enemies. Sad and sick.
Even Parker thinks Manafort is guilty, which is more radical than my position.
I am only arguing that the underlying charge is serious enough that any reasonable prosecutor would proceed.
Money laundering and tax avoidance are serious crimes. They’re relatively easy to prove and often prosecuted.
See McCarthy, the money laundering charge is a fan dance. The money laundered has to be ill-gotten gains. Mueller isn’t alleging Manafort was dealing drugs, he’s alleging Manafort and Gates were moving money around in a conspiracy to avoid registering as foreign agents. John Podesta, to take one example, was never prosecuted for failure to register as a foreign agent, merely sent admonitory letters. Other charges include non-compliance with reporting requirements (IOW, proscribed for reasons of utility, not in the service of morals and ethics), conspiracy charges substituting for straightforward charges which are time-barred, &c. And, of course, Trump has nothing to do with Manafort’s tax returns, his foreign bank accounts, his lobbying, or the people on his client list ca. 2010.
It’s stupefying any of this could be conceived of as being in the special counsel’s book, or that Rosenstein would try to put it there retroactively.
It looks like Mueller doesn’t just want Manafort to sing but to make up stuff about Trump.
Manju,
Mueller is a SPECIAL prosecutor whose sole remit is to determine if there was collusion between President Trump and the Russians.
He has no remit or standing to prosecute ANYTHING else. He must, therefore show how something that happened years before 2016 has ANY relationship to the campaign. If he can’t convince, eventually, the US Supreme Court of that it is meaningless.
And President Trump will continue to nominate conservative judges. And overturn the Obama ‘legacy’.
Art Deco,
If someone makes say $500K as a lobbyist for a foreign government, reports and pays taxes on that income, but fails to register as a foreign agent, I can see prosecutorial discretion coming into play.
With Manafort we are taking about $75 million. Not only does he fail to register as as an agent of a foreign government, he fails to report this income. Indeed, he sets up a labyrinth of partnerships, corporations, and foreign accounts designed to conceal money from US authorities.
He then fails to disclose his ownership of the foreign corporations. He does not report his foreign bank accounts. All this violates US law.
He uses approximately 3 dozen foreign corporations to wire approximately $30 million to the US. He purchases property. Then he takes out mortgages on them. Voila…he’s obtained US dollars without reporting or paying taxes on them.
The tax part alone takes this out of the prosecutorial discretion category.
Manju makes a good point about prosecuting Manafort, but it still doesn’t fall into Trump-Russia collusion, just Manafort-corruption.
Mueller should sever the prosecution and stick to his own mandate.
With Manafort we are taking about $75 million. Not only does he fail to register as as an agent of a foreign government, he fails to report this income. Indeed, he sets up a labyrinth of partnerships, corporations, and foreign accounts designed to conceal money from US authorities.
We’d be better off if you didn’t ever serve on any juries.