Even if that is the case, that makes the corruption even worse, because it means they could throw the book at him with no actual effect and chose not to. Because the corruption in this country is so bad now they don’t even need to hide or pretend. Just flaunt it. What are the people going to do? Nothing.
I’ll accept 10 years for Manafort as being just if a date with Mme G is what awaits him at the end of the prison term.
So in a just world he’ll be something like 47,299,153rd against the wall when the revolution comes.
I’m not minimizing the extent of the corruption. It’s at least as bad as we thought. I am saying that, as a practical matter, he has received pretty close to the maximum possible punishment. He’ll likely die in poverty, in prison and without the comfort of family. That’s his reality. He probably spends much of his ample free time thinking about that.
Honestly, that’s a pretty awful fate. In his position, I might be asking for a guillotine.
He’s going to be pardoned in two years. Quietly. Or less. Loudly.
Doesn’t matter. He can die in State prison, then.
No chance. Pardoning him means he can be forced to testify before Congress and cannot plead the fifth. He could be sent back to jail for refusing to testify or for lying, so his incentives would be to tell a Democratic-led committee everything he knows about Trump.
It’s in Trump’s best interest that Manafort dies quietly in prison. He’s not going to pardon him.
Oh I totally get why is would be a political disaster to pardon him, and I also remember how it would be a political disaster to implement a transgender ban in the military, kidnap and imprison the children of refugees, accept bribes from foreign governments in plain sight, call the free press the enemy of the people…
We both know that all norms are shot through and nothing is off the table now. I’ll put $10 on Manafort being pardoned or his sentence commuted by end of term, whenever that is.
Agree, I think it likely Trump will commute as he’s going out the door. As Bush did with Scooter Libby.
Don’t forget how they tore apart and murdered a journalist under the do not care watch of our current administration.
I don’t mean a pardon would be a political disaster. You’re right in that it would be, but that’s not the problem. The problem for Trump is that it could become a personal disaster. Manafort being forced to testify truthfully could be Trump’s worst case scenario. I certainly don’t see how it helps Trump to do so. And it’s not like Trump has a history of sticking by people in hard times.
I don’t know if a commutation carries the same consequences as a pardon, though.
So Whitaker changed his tune, huh?
Yeah, hoo-boy.
Yeah, you don’t want to be top-of-mind in the SDNY, not if you’re a lifelong con-artist. And you don’t want to go out of your way to offend them, even if you’re president.
We’re all going to be disappointed by the Mueller report and its impact. But I truly think that 2021 and 2022 are going to be awfully, awfully rough on the Trumps.
We may see a record in total value of assets seized.
I’m such a 12-year-old. Laughing my ass off.
I mean, when it said the resolution was 420-0, I also did not expect it to be about Mueller.
a new punchable-face contender arises
The boy who cried Mueller Report