Manafort verdict: guilty on 8 counts, mistrial on 10
The first sentence of this article is telling, isn’t it?:
President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort on Tuesday was found guilty of eight of the 18 charges brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller.
It’s really quite simple: if Manafort had not been “Trump’s former campaign manager” he’d be a free man today. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent—I happen to believe he’s guilty of some form of fraud. But it means that he was only prosecuted in hopes that he’d turn on Trump and implicate him, as well as to frighten other people who might want to work for Trump, and to embarrass and annoy Trump.
I’ve been trying to discover whether the verdict yesterday reflects the fact that the jury rejected the testimony of Rick Gates (see this) and convicted Manafort based on other evidence, or whether belief in Gates’ story was a necessary part of the mix. I’m not sure, but apparently the answer is that they didn’t need to believe Gates in order to convict Manafort:
Manafort’s lawyers sought to discredit Gates, revealing he embezzled what they said was millions of dollars from Manafort by falsifying expense reports and had an extramarital affair.
Andres, though, acknowledged to the jury that Gates was an imperfect witness, but challenged them to test his testimony against that of Manafort’s bookkeeper and tax preparer, and pair it with documents for verification.
“The star witness in this case is the documents,” he said.
It probably was exactly that.
It goes without saying—but I’ll say it again anyway—that all of Manafort’s fraud was committed before working for Trump and was completely unrelated to his campaign.
It also is the case that Manafort could be put away for a long, long time. And he faces still another trial connected with his actions, this one in a different venue. But there’s a little catch:
Manafort will likely appeal the verdict, but the case might not even get that far. Even before Manafort’s initial indictment, observers have speculated that President Donald Trump might pardon Manafort…
But pardoning Manafort would be especially controversial given Manafort’s place at the center of investigations into what Trump did or did not know about Russian intelligence’s efforts to influence the 2016 election, and whether Trump himself was involved in those efforts. Pardoning Manafort would look like, and perhaps be, an effort to use presidential power to cover up Trump’s own wrongdoing.
Those optics mean it might make political sense for Trump to hold off on pardons, as Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains here. What’s more, as multiple law professors told my colleague Sean Illing, pardoning Manafort might deprive him of his Fifth Amendment right not to testify when subpoenaed, potentially putting Trump in more legal jeopardy.
The article goes on to add that if the state of NY decides to pursue Manafort in addition, Trump would lack the power to grant him a pardon in any convictions at the state level.
So there are a lot of wildcards there, including what sort of punishment the present convictions end up drawing for Manafort (he faces a possible 80 years in this particular trial). If Manafort’s ultimate sentence is relatively mild, I doubt Trump would go the pardon route. But it all remains to be seen.
Professor Eugene Volokh has pointed out that all those thousands of federal felonies constitute a de facto bill of attainder. If the feds want to send you to jail they will find something.
My readings also noted that the Manafort guilty verdict were all on tax fraud charges and all for years prior to his political relationship with Trump (see also Neo’s acknowledgement in the post).
Over at LegalInsurrection, Prof. William Jacobson writes that neither the Manafort nor the Cohen verdict change anything.
Link:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/08/manafort-and-cohen-convictions-dont-change-much-politically/
I note the stark contrast between how Manafort has been treated by our judicial system, and the treatment given Congressional Democrat’s former IT Administrator, Imran Awan, whose verdict and sentence also came down yesterday.
I have read that the IRS rather thoroughly investigated Manafort some years ago, and concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. I have also read that Federal prosecutions result in 95% convictions. So, two points leap out. First, Mueller’s Marauders batted well below the average with only 8 out of 18 convictions; and second, when the prosecutor throws 18 charges at the jury, they probably feel compelled to find guilt in a few.
My comments are not to defend Manafort. It appears that he is a pretty sleazy business man–or at least he has been painted as such. I suspect is that puts him in the company of a fairly large fraternity of high rollers. But, as others have noted, he was not considered worthwhile prey by the Feds until his name became associated with Trump’s.
Cohen ad Manafort are both found guilty of process crimes. Crimes that the Feds may not have bothered with except for the two men’s relationship with Trump. Judge Ellis, who presided over the Manafort trial, said that quite clearly at the beginning.
My perception of our legal system has been changed by the way these men have been pursued. Especially in light of the exoneration of Hillary Clinton and the lack of interest in the plotters in the FBI/DOJ/Intel community. It’s plain to see that we have Banana Republic justice. Can it be set right? Only if we can find more honest men to serve in the government. Not an outcome that seems likely in these times.
Agree JJ but my perception was changed in this way by the pursuit and conviction of Scooter Libby.
someone said online in the message box what good has Trump done in changing the landscape of le maraise!!!
FBI Departures:
James Comey, director (fired)
Andrew McCabe, deputy director (fired)
Peter Strzok, counterintelligence expert (fired)
Lisa Page, attorney (demoted; resigned)
James Rybicki, chief of staff (resigned)
James Baker, general counsel (resigned)
Mike Kortan, assistant director for public affairs (resigned)
Josh Campbell, special assistant to James Comey (resigned)
James Turgal, executive assistant director (resigned)
Greg Bower, assistant director for office of congressional affairs (resigned)
Michael Steinbach, executive assistant director (resigned)
John Giacalone, executive assistant director (resigned)
DOJ Departures:
Sally Yates, deputy attorney general (fired)
Bruce Ohr, associate deputy attorney general (twice demoted)
David Laufman, counterintelligence chief (resigned)
Rachel Brand, deputy attorney general (resigned)
Trisha Beth Anderson, office of legal counsel for FBI (demoted or reassigned*)
John P. Carlin, assistant attorney general (resigned)
Peter Kadzik, assistant attorney general, congressional liaison (resigned)
Mary McCord, acting assistant attorney general (resigned)
Matthew Axelrod, principal assistant to deputy attorney general (resigned)
Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney, SDNY (fired along with 45 other U.S. Attorneys)
Sharon McGowan, civil rights division (resigned)
Diana Flynn, litigation director for LGBTQ civil rights (resigned)
Vanita Gupta, civil rights division (resigned)
Joel McElvain, assistant branch director of the civil division (resigned)
Over at LegalInsurrection, Prof. William Jacobson writes that neither the Manafort nor the Cohen verdict change anything
there was no Cohen verdict, he just decided to cave to avoid being bankrupted proving his innocence to a non crime… when the day is done, you cant get your cash back in a criminal trial gone wrong for the prosecution, and their pockets are infinitely deep if the cause is celebrate enough
big old nothing burget to gin up outrage among people that dont know how things are, how they work, or what they should think till someone tells them something about whats been legal and or common practice outside their purview
The Flynn thing was pretty much a cave to a non crime, too .. so basically we have two cases of the big bad government, with essentially unlimited resources, breaking little people, and ancient, irrelevant (to the stated mission) tax evasion charges.
Yep. That’s we, the US taxpayers, have paid for here. If that’s all they have, they need to stop wasting our money.
I was reading the excerpt from the article and all I could think of was “whoever wrote this is an idiot.” Then I opened the link in a new tab and as soon as I saw the Vox address I (a) knew I was right and (b) closed the tab without bothering to read the article.
Pardoning Manafort would do NOTHING to protect Trump. Manafort could be compelled to testify as a witness against Trump and he’d have to testify. He couldn’t plead the 5th, for instance, because once he’s been pardoned he could not be prosecuted. So it wouldn’t make Trump appear guilty. Quite the opposite, it would demonstrate he doesn’t believe he has anything to hide.
“If that’s all they have, they need to stop wasting our money.” KyndyllG
LOL! What leads you to imagine that they view our money… as ours? As far as they’re concerned, its tribute for services rendered.
The Trotskyites among them are smugly certain that they are far betters arbiters of its use than we. And the Stalinists among them see it as useful leverage in gaining ever more power.
Remember? “you didn’t build that…”
anyone else finds it ridiculous that you are automatically guilty for an alleged crime that has never been established to be a crime in any court of law only because your lawyer is a crook and by confessing to this alleged trivial minor crime and implicating you in it he gets a lighter sentencing for much more serious felonies that he committed on his own.? Why the heck does Cohen have the power to confess to a crime on Trump’s behalf. Besides, Cohen is Trump’s lawyer, his job was to keep Trump out of legal troubles and solve his problems legally. Does Cohen has any recordings of Trump insisting Cohen to pay the hush money with this method even after Cohen advised him this way of paying the woman is illegal? If not, then how the heck is Trump guilty on anything when he only told Cohen to take care of something that was totally legal and Cohen f**ked up his duty as Trump’s lawyer and took care of something that was completely legal in an illegal method? Cohen didn’t have to do it if he knew it was illegal, did Trump insist after knowing its illegal, any proof?
It is very funny that somehow it is legal for me to pay the women hush money on my own but somehow going through a lawyer makes it illegal, why the he** do we need lawyers for?
Why the heck does Cohen have the power to confess to a crime on Trump’s behalf.
Cohen is the keeper of Trum’s secrets. Like most other Democrat secret keepers, they are slightly crooked and grow more so over time.
It is very funny that somehow it is legal for me to pay the women hush money on my own but somehow going through a lawyer makes it illegal, why the he** do we need lawyers for?
We don’t need lawyers. We don’t even need the “press”. Americans are slaves. The slaves think they are free.