In the summer of 2016, just before the GOP convention, the Trump children hired Paul Manafort and fired Cory Lewandowski who had been the campaign manager since 2015 and all through the primaries.
The rationale for Manafort was that he knew how to round up delegate votes at the convention.
Mr. Manafort, 66, is among the few political hands in either party with direct experience managing nomination fights: As a young Republican operative, he helped manage the 1976 convention floor for Gerald Ford in his showdown with Ronald Reagan, the last time Republicans entered a convention with no candidate having clinched the nomination.
He performed a similar function for Mr. Reagan in 1980, and played leading roles in the 1988 and 1996 conventions, for George Bush and Bob Dole.
Mr. Manafort has drawn attention in recent years chiefly for his work as an international political consultant, most notably as a senior adviser to former President Viktor F. Yanukovych of Ukraine, who was driven from power in 2014.
His “experience” was 20 years in the past and he proved to be a rapacious employee, demanding $5 million dollars for “outreach” soon after being hired.
The Lewandowski book, “Let Trump be Trump” is a very good description of the campaign, written with David Bossie.
In August, after sidelining him for a month, Trump fired Manafort, and, according to Lewandowski, it was because he learned that Manafort was “a crook.”
Mueller, and his traveling road show, is now holding Manafort in prison awaiting trial which keeps getting postponed.
A Washington, D.C., judge on Wednesday set a trial date of Sept. 17 for Paul Manafort, just weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, a spokesperson for the former Trump campaign chairman confirmed.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to numerous charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including money laundering, tax fraud and bank fraud conspiracy.
Nowhere in the charges is there any allegation of contact between the Trump campaign and Russia. Manafort is being charged with financial crimes related to work he did for Ukraine a decade ago.
Now it seems, that serious misbehavior occurred with the DOJ and FBI in this case.
The gist of the story is that Andrew Weissmann was meeting with AP reporters in April of 2017, approximately a month prior to the formal construct of the Robert Mueller investigation. The information from the meeting, which was essentially based on research provided by the “reporters” about Paul Manafort, was then later used in the formation of the underlying evidence against Manafort to gain a search warrant.
I would not be terribly surprised to see the whole case thrown out for prosecutorial misbehavior.
So Trump was of the opinion that Manafort was a crook and fired him. Now Mueller has come to the same conclusion and indicted him. I’m not seeing the great anti-Trump implications of this.
Yesterday Flynn’s sentencing was again delayed. It’s been eight months since he copped a plea and agreed to cooperate, yet there’s no indication he has provided any information to Mueller. Odds are that the delays are because there won’t be any jail time. If and when Flynn skates with only a slap on the wrist it will be a big black eye to this whole national debacle. What was this all supposed to prove?
My opinion is that Flynn has the whole case dismissed. We’ll see.
Manafort might even get the case thrown out for the outrageous behavior of the prosecutors.
They aren’t prosecutors, they are persecutors and a stain on the law profession.
Well if Manafort were a more appealing person, we might have the makings of one of those swashbuckling movies when the powers that be put the hero in a castle tower to await the crown’s edict. We don’t seem to be taking the crime as the cause of the charges but rather the man. And surely solitary will lead him to confusions if not confessions.
Meanwhile in the midst of all this, Awan gets a very light knuckle tap. And the IG’s report, full of rich detail of wrongdoing, is quoted against the republicans as they interrogate the smarmy Strozk.
Flynn has provided all kinds of information as a result of his guilty plea. It’s just that it has nothing to do with incriminating President Trump.
It’s what’s called ‘graymail’ – national security classified information that goes into the public record of a court case. Either they declassify it and have a big reveal, or they don’t.
Levin: Mueller’s appointment was unconstitutional
Chris Pandolfo · May 21, 2018
“Mark Levin
about 2 months ago
The appointment of Robert Mueller violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution…
The appointment of Robert Mueller violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Mueller is not an inferior appointee, but a principal appointee as understood under our constitutional. His powers are more akin to an United States attorney, not an assistant United States attorney. Moreover, his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, treats him as a principal officer — that is, Mueller is mostly free to conduct his investigation with few limits or restraints. The parameters of his appointment were extraordinarily broad in the first instance, and have only expanded since then. …
See More
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/levin-muellers-appointment-was-unconstitutional/
“… work [Manafort] did for Ukraine a decade ago…”
Inasmuch as his client Yanukovych was a Putin stooge engaged in selling out Ukraine to Russia, I would say that any work Manafort did then was done in Ukraine, but not for Ukraine.
Anonymous above is me.
“Flynn has provided all kinds of information as a result of his guilty plea”
News to me and I would like to know where you got this from.
The FBI agents originally, form what I have seen, did not say he lied and Sally Yates chose to indict him anyway.
His son was threatened and he caved to stay solvent.
I think this will be dismissed. We have already had a judge ream out the prosecutors on thus case.
Contreras , the first judge, was a buddy of Strzok/Gates and was the FISC judge who OK’d the surveillance that is going to put Strzok/Gates in prison.
When he took over the Flynn case in December, Sullivan ordered Mueller’s team “to produce all discoverable evidence in a readily usable form.” And he declared that “if the government has identified any information which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes not to be material, the government shall submit such information to the Court for in camera review.”
We’ll see how this goes but I don’t think a pardon will be needed.