Manafort and an associate have surrendered to authorities, but he only ran Trump’s campaign for a few months. There’s no reason for Trump to panic. Right?
…are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!
Dumb for him to ever have picked Manafort to begin with. As if everybody didn’t already know he was dirty. (although I still think Dem/Clinton corruption is worse because of the institutional support for it, but whatev).
Always have enjoyed Spacey and his sexual orientation was well known if never openly acknowledged by the actor himself. But interesting choice of words he used (“choose”).
I can’t even imagine how many of these stories about most Hollywood folks and their misbehavior will be emerging in the weeks and months to come. Strange, because no one’s really surprised by any of it, right?
If Mueller thinks this will justify his witch hunt he is mistaken. These are old crimes that had nothing to do with Trump. Mueller should be nervous. After all, the next special prosecutor may pull the same on him for his years old cover-up of the Clinton’s misdeeds, where they actually colluded with Russia.
“The charges are the first to stem from an inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US 2016 election.
However, they do not relate to Mr Trump’s campaign but to the two men’s Ukrainian business dealings up to 2015.
For years Paul Manafort operated on the fringes of power, a once-influential Washington player who worked with some less-than-savoury international characters because his services were no longer in high demand domestically.
Then, like many other politicos in Donald Trump’s orbit, he was thrust into the spotlight because more established hands wanted nothing to do with the upstart’s presidential campaign.
Mr Manafort got his big break but it may end up breaking him. That resulting spotlight has drawn attention to Mr Manafort’s past dealings and raised questions about his actions while in at the top of the Trump campaign.
The good news for Mr Trump is these charges stem from Mr Manafort’s past business dealings, not his campaign efforts. He is being accused of working for years for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians and laundering millions in subsequent payments.”
“Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading. The Paul Manafort indictment is much ado about nothing . . . except as a vehicle to squeeze Manafort, which is special counsel Robert Mueller’s objective — as we have been arguing for three months (see here, here, and here). Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment). This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the media call “the attack on our democracy” (i.e., the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in “collusion” with the Trump campaign). Essentially, Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from 2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering conspiracy.”
DJ, the ratings for House of Cards were falling anyway. Some were attributing the dropping rates to the fact that real politics were more entertaining.
Sure it is. Unless of course it’s all based on illegally gathered info. And then the 4th Amend. and fruit of the poison tree doctrine takes over, and their evidence is tossed.
And if the FISA warrants were obtained using the tainted “Trump Dossier” as evidence of a crime to get the warrants, it all gets tossed.
“US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.”
_______________________
“The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources.
The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year.
Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI’s efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.”
“Ex-campaign adviser Paul Manafort turned himself in Monday after being indicted for money laundering, and a slew of other financial crimes. The feds alleged he illegally funneled millions of dollars of payments into offshore bank accounts in order to avoid detection by U.S. authorities as it related to his work on behalf of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. While the indictment containing Manfort’s alleged criminal activities is very detailed, and well-documented, there is one area that could hurt Mueller’s investigation. Mueller’s team may have obtained evidence in the raid of Paul Manafort’s home that was not covered by the search warrant. That could be problematic.
In a surprise raid on July 26th, FBI agents busted into Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia to collect documents and other materials related to the FBI probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. At the time, Manafort’s attorney raised concerns about how the raid was conducted. In order for the feds to obtain a warrant, a federal judge would have to determine that probable cause existed that a crime was committed. As part of the warrant, investigators attached an affidavit which contained a list of items that FBI agents hoped to collect. That’s where the trouble appears to be in Manafort’s case.
As a legal website, we were immediately drawn to the revelation that evidence was collected that may not have been covered by the warrant. That’s a serious development, and one that Manafort’s attorneys will no doubt seize upon. But, is it necessarily illegal? Did the agents do anything wrong? It’s not clear. It certainly could raise some serious constitutional issues that could taint the investigation.”
roscuro: Is that what Mueller was appointed to investigate? Since his boundaries have expanded, let’s see if he has the integrity to go after some crimes that actually affect this country’s national security. I’m quite sure he will pass on those…
For Manafort or any others who are found guilty of actual crimes, they should be punished for those crimes. Party affiliation should play no role in their punishment – wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?
Tych, from the little I’ve read about Mueller’s ongoing investigation – mostly reports from World – Rosenstein gave him broad power to investigate any and all contacts between Russian officials and members of Trump’s campaign – I had no idea the actual document was available online until I tried to google an article just now: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3726408-Rosenstein-letter-appointing-Mueller-special.html. Manafort was connected to Russian officials and he was part of Trump’s campaign. Speaking as an outsider, the presence of Manafort in Trump’s campaign is difficult not to connect to Trump’s stated admiration of Putin and his call to the Russians to hack into and release Clinton’s emails: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/27/donald-trump-russia-hillary-clinton-emails-dnc-hack. At the time, I remarked to my mother it seemed somewhat treasonous to call on a foreign power to hack the communications of a Secretary of State, when the whole point of the controversy then was that said Secretary had been careless with sensitive material involving the security of the country. Trump seemed to be putting party before country. I don’t really care one way or the other about the Mueller investigation, but the likes of Paul Manafort and his ilk, who cold-bloodedly pursue profit at the expense of others make my blood boil – the Bible has plenty to say in condemnation of such people. That they occur on both sides of the political spectrum is to be expected. It would be foolish to assume that one political party is more free of human corruption than the other.
Tychicus, yes and no. 🙂 We’ve been discussing it on the daily thread a bit (or I have anyway).
Like many shows, “House of Cards” seemed good in its first couple seasons but then peaked and began to decline. I’ve not kept up with it lately but it seemed to turn campy almost. And, yes, the real thing is much crazier now anyway. 🙂
Trump’s “call” on Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails was nothing more than stump speech bluster. There is no way it was some official request of his to solicit real action from Russia, nor was it something Russia would have had to have been prompted by an American to do in the first place.
March 6, 2016. Papadopoulos learns that he will serve as an adviser to Trump’s campaign. (The timing isn’t clear; it may have been a day before or after this date.)…
April 26. Papadopoulos and the professor meet in London. At that meeting, the professor tells Papadopoulos that, while in Moscow, he learned that “the Russians had obtained “dirt” on then-candidate [Hillary] Clinton.” Per Papadopoulos, the professor said that “‘They have dirt on her’; ‘the Russians had emails of Clinton’; ‘they have thousands of emails.’”
April 27. Papadopoulos emails a senior campaign staffer to indicate that he’s gotten some “interesting messages.”…
July 27. During a news conference, Trump states that Russia “probably [has] her 33,000 emails” — referring to emails deleted by Clinton after her service in the State Department because her lawyers didn’t believe them to be related to her tenure.
How significant it was is beyond my knowledge of the U.S. laws surrounding election campaigns, but that timeline indicates a strong probability that Trump knew something of what Papadopoulos’ contacts had told him.
Wandering Views 
Manafort and an associate have surrendered to authorities, but he only ran Trump’s campaign for a few months. There’s no reason for Trump to panic. Right?
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Dumb for him to ever have picked Manafort to begin with. As if everybody didn’t already know he was dirty. (although I still think Dem/Clinton corruption is worse because of the institutional support for it, but whatev).
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https://twitter.com/Chet_Cannon/status/924867045337972741
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Always have enjoyed Spacey and his sexual orientation was well known if never openly acknowledged by the actor himself. But interesting choice of words he used (“choose”).
I can’t even imagine how many of these stories about most Hollywood folks and their misbehavior will be emerging in the weeks and months to come. Strange, because no one’s really surprised by any of it, right?
LikeLike
If Mueller thinks this will justify his witch hunt he is mistaken. These are old crimes that had nothing to do with Trump. Mueller should be nervous. After all, the next special prosecutor may pull the same on him for his years old cover-up of the Clinton’s misdeeds, where they actually colluded with Russia.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41804740
“The charges are the first to stem from an inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US 2016 election.
However, they do not relate to Mr Trump’s campaign but to the two men’s Ukrainian business dealings up to 2015.
For years Paul Manafort operated on the fringes of power, a once-influential Washington player who worked with some less-than-savoury international characters because his services were no longer in high demand domestically.
Then, like many other politicos in Donald Trump’s orbit, he was thrust into the spotlight because more established hands wanted nothing to do with the upstart’s presidential campaign.
Mr Manafort got his big break but it may end up breaking him. That resulting spotlight has drawn attention to Mr Manafort’s past dealings and raised questions about his actions while in at the top of the Trump campaign.
The good news for Mr Trump is these charges stem from Mr Manafort’s past business dealings, not his campaign efforts. He is being accused of working for years for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians and laundering millions in subsequent payments.”
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Hmm. If they start pulling the plug on shows where stars have sexually harassed others and misbehaved, I’m thinking we won’t have much left to watch.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/10/30/house-cards-ending-amid-kevin-spacey-sexual-harassment-claim.html
deadline.com: BREAKING NEWS
‘House Of Cards’ To End Next Year Amid Spacey Allegations
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dj: Are you enjoying the World Series?
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What was Mueller’s original mission?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453244/manafort-indictment-no-signs-trump-russia-collusion?platform=hootsuite
“Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading. The Paul Manafort indictment is much ado about nothing . . . except as a vehicle to squeeze Manafort, which is special counsel Robert Mueller’s objective — as we have been arguing for three months (see here, here, and here). Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment). This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the media call “the attack on our democracy” (i.e., the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in “collusion” with the Trump campaign). Essentially, Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from 2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering conspiracy.”
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DJ, the ratings for House of Cards were falling anyway. Some were attributing the dropping rates to the fact that real politics were more entertaining.
It has long been known that Paul Manafort worked for the campaign of former Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych, the one who was deposed in the 2014 Euromaiden revolution for his pro-Russia stance: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/30/who-did-manafort-and-gates-work-for-in-ukraine-and-russia/?utm_term=.bce0736f956f#comments
Good to see that the U.S. is taking steps to discipline some of its citizens who have contributed to the corruption of other countries.
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Sure it is. Unless of course it’s all based on illegally gathered info. And then the 4th Amend. and fruit of the poison tree doctrine takes over, and their evidence is tossed.
And if the FISA warrants were obtained using the tainted “Trump Dossier” as evidence of a crime to get the warrants, it all gets tossed.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/paul-manafort-government-wiretapped-fisa-russians/index.html
“US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.”
_______________________
“The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources.
The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year.
Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI’s efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.”
—————————————————
https://lawnewz.com/high-profile/mueller-teams-apparent-mistake-could-really-really-hurt-their-case-against-manafort/
“Ex-campaign adviser Paul Manafort turned himself in Monday after being indicted for money laundering, and a slew of other financial crimes. The feds alleged he illegally funneled millions of dollars of payments into offshore bank accounts in order to avoid detection by U.S. authorities as it related to his work on behalf of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. While the indictment containing Manfort’s alleged criminal activities is very detailed, and well-documented, there is one area that could hurt Mueller’s investigation. Mueller’s team may have obtained evidence in the raid of Paul Manafort’s home that was not covered by the search warrant. That could be problematic.
In a surprise raid on July 26th, FBI agents busted into Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia to collect documents and other materials related to the FBI probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. At the time, Manafort’s attorney raised concerns about how the raid was conducted. In order for the feds to obtain a warrant, a federal judge would have to determine that probable cause existed that a crime was committed. As part of the warrant, investigators attached an affidavit which contained a list of items that FBI agents hoped to collect. That’s where the trouble appears to be in Manafort’s case.
As a legal website, we were immediately drawn to the revelation that evidence was collected that may not have been covered by the warrant. That’s a serious development, and one that Manafort’s attorneys will no doubt seize upon. But, is it necessarily illegal? Did the agents do anything wrong? It’s not clear. It certainly could raise some serious constitutional issues that could taint the investigation.”
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roscuro: Is that what Mueller was appointed to investigate? Since his boundaries have expanded, let’s see if he has the integrity to go after some crimes that actually affect this country’s national security. I’m quite sure he will pass on those…
For Manafort or any others who are found guilty of actual crimes, they should be punished for those crimes. Party affiliation should play no role in their punishment – wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?
LikeLike
Tych, from the little I’ve read about Mueller’s ongoing investigation – mostly reports from World – Rosenstein gave him broad power to investigate any and all contacts between Russian officials and members of Trump’s campaign – I had no idea the actual document was available online until I tried to google an article just now: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3726408-Rosenstein-letter-appointing-Mueller-special.html. Manafort was connected to Russian officials and he was part of Trump’s campaign. Speaking as an outsider, the presence of Manafort in Trump’s campaign is difficult not to connect to Trump’s stated admiration of Putin and his call to the Russians to hack into and release Clinton’s emails: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/27/donald-trump-russia-hillary-clinton-emails-dnc-hack. At the time, I remarked to my mother it seemed somewhat treasonous to call on a foreign power to hack the communications of a Secretary of State, when the whole point of the controversy then was that said Secretary had been careless with sensitive material involving the security of the country. Trump seemed to be putting party before country. I don’t really care one way or the other about the Mueller investigation, but the likes of Paul Manafort and his ilk, who cold-bloodedly pursue profit at the expense of others make my blood boil – the Bible has plenty to say in condemnation of such people. That they occur on both sides of the political spectrum is to be expected. It would be foolish to assume that one political party is more free of human corruption than the other.
LikeLike
Tychicus, yes and no. 🙂 We’ve been discussing it on the daily thread a bit (or I have anyway).
Like many shows, “House of Cards” seemed good in its first couple seasons but then peaked and began to decline. I’ve not kept up with it lately but it seemed to turn campy almost. And, yes, the real thing is much crazier now anyway. 🙂
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Trump’s “call” on Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails was nothing more than stump speech bluster. There is no way it was some official request of his to solicit real action from Russia, nor was it something Russia would have had to have been prompted by an American to do in the first place.
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Solar, Russia didn’t need any prompting, but Trump’s comment was at best foolhardy. Especially as we now know that Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos, who has admitted to his involvement, had already notified the Trump campaign about Russians claiming to have dirt on Clinton by the time Trump made that public statement: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/30/timeline-how-a-trump-adviser-tried-to-work-with-the-russian-government/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.ca06787f961b
How significant it was is beyond my knowledge of the U.S. laws surrounding election campaigns, but that timeline indicates a strong probability that Trump knew something of what Papadopoulos’ contacts had told him.
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https://twitter.com/kevinnr/status/925142706644537344
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https://twitter.com/susan_hennessey/status/925137972860719104
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Debra, It appears that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was reading our conversation about income taxes last week, and it appears she is on my side.
http://theweek.com/speedreads/734201/sarah-huckabee-sanders-just-read-viral-email-forward-from-2011-reporters-explain-white-houses-position-tax-reform
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An interesting column by Brooks. It references “Boyhood” which was a great movie about modern America.
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Remember the name Sam Clovis. He is going to be in the news in the next few weeks.
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