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Title : Yow! Wow! Pow!
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Yow! Wow! Pow!
Manafort. Looks like he is flipping. Semi-flipping. I think that he will enter a plea tomorrow. I do not think that we will see an announcement of cooperation with Mueller.Why a plea, and why now? Lotta speculation on this point. Marcy thinks it's all about moolah:
But the reason why Mueller isn’t just going to let Manafort plead to some of the DC charges without cooperating is because that would mean giving up the considerable leverage — $30 million worth — that Mueller built into this case a year ago.Fair point, but Putin and 'garchs can make Paulie whole and then some. In my opinion, this is about the all-important state charges against Manafort -- charges which that divinely-inspired holdout juror in the first trial made possible without any argument about double jeopardy.
While it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, both Manafort indictments include forfeiture provisions, meaning the government will seize his ill-gotten gains. And because Manafort had a shit-ton of ill-gotten gains, there’s a whole lot of stuff that the government can now seize, starting with his ostrich skin suits.
Having been found guilty of charges 25 and 27 in his EDVA trial, for example, the government will seize the funds from the $16 million loan Manafort got by lying to Federal Savings Bank.
(Was that juror secretly working for Mueller? Nah. That's a ridiculous theory. But boy -- that would be playing hardball, wouldn't it?)
The point is this: For a guy Manafort's age, it's no longer about the money. It's about spending your remaining years a free man. I'm older than Marcy, so this is one area where my instincts may be keener than hers.
My hunch, and it is just a hunch, is that the cooperation agreement won't be made public.
Why not? I'm not sure, but I suspect that a key factor is the Grand Omerta Compact which links everyone on Team Trump facing investigation. Manafort, we now know, is part of that compact, officially known as a Joint Defense Agreement.
I'm not sure how the Joint Defense Agreement would impact the cooperation agreement, but common sense tells us that if Paulie comes out and says "I'm cooperating!", he must then leave the Omerta Compact.
On the other hand, if a cooperation agreement is not formally announced...
What then? Is Paulie still in the Omerta Compact?
I dunno. I can't find an answer to that question. Folks, we are swimming in strange waters...
Keep in mind, though, that much the same thing happened to Cohen. He was forced to make a plea based on state charges (particularly the potential charges against his wife) -- and no cooperation agreement was announced, even though Cohen clearly is cooperating.
Cynic I may be, pessimist I may be, but even I must admit that Muller played this one well. He seems to have found a way around the presidential power of the pardon.
The great Brett Kavanaugh Guessing Game. Just now, as Rachel Maddow transitioned to Lawrence O'Donnell, we learned more about the mystery letter, which O'Donnell (probably based on his contacts in the Senate) has known about since last freakin' Friday.
Apparently, the letter involves a sexual abuse case which goes all the way back to high school to Kavanaugh's high school days, at a time when both Kavanaugh and the girl in question were underaged. I'm not sure what "abuse" means in this case, but nobody has mentioned rape. So what are we talking about? A seventeen year-old boy who makes a very premature play for second base?
Frankly, most Americans won't be angered by that kind of revelation; it's a little late for that kind of skeleton to come popping out of the closet. I would not react well if such a Democrat got smacked with a blast from the distant past, and I have to maintain the same standard in the case of a Republican.
Perhaps she really did claim rape. Perhaps the claim is justified. Perhaps she is lying. But why would a liar demand anonymity?
The greatest mystery facing us right now is this: Why the referral to the FBI?
The Bureau does not investigate sexual abuse allegations, and at any rate, the statute of limitations is long since passed. For a while, earlier today, there was a theory that Kavanaugh paid the woman to keep quiet about an abortion, and that the man's reported $200,000 in credit card debt was actually a hush money payment. If such a payment was structured in such a way as to avoid triggering the disclosure that happens when a payment exceeds the $10,000 mark, then the FBI might well take an interest.
A simpler theory is that Kavanaugh was asked about his sexual history during the vetting process. If he did not mention -- or lied about -- an assault case from his youth, then he is guilty of perjury.
Of course, we know that the man has perjured himself on other matters, but this is sex. Sex gets attention. At any rate, the simpler theory seems like the better theory right now.
The right is filling comments sections with outrageous accusations of a Democratic conspiracy. Come off it!
The woman provably exists; some news organizations know her name and have spoken to her. She does not want to go on the record. If she were party to a conspiracy to besmirch Kavanaugh, then she would go on the record -- otherwise, what would be the point?
Similarly, if this were a smear, then the letter would have leaked. Feinstein would not have referred the matter to the FBI, where (as far as we know) it may well disappear altogether. The whole point of a smear is publicity, and the Dems have bent over backward to avoid that. Even Lawrence O'Donnell has kept mum. No publicity = no smear.
I'm reminded of the commonly-heard right-wing claim that James Comey was in Camp Clinton, even though Comey publicized the Weiner laptop -- about which he could have kept mum -- while simultaneously keeping mum about the FBI's investigation of Team Trump.
Quite a few right-wing trolls have compared this matter to Anita Hill's accusations against Clarence Thomas. These trolls are banking on the fact that young people have no clear memory of what really happened back int he 1990s.
In the years since that confrontation, Hill has been entirely vindicated. In that case, the only conspiracy in evidence was a right-wing conspiracy to besmirch Anita Hill. We know all about that conspiracy because the man hired to smear Hill, David Brock, later confessed to the whole plot. In fact, he offered the world a superb behind-the-scenes memoir of how the right-wing conspirators operate.
Things are much worse now. If the author of the Kavanaugh Mystery Letter is ever revealed, she'll be pummeled by dozens of Brocks. A Brock brigade. They will play far dirtier than Brock did, and they will be backed by the Russian troll army.
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