The Case Against Paul Manafort You Won't Hear at His Trial

[Miles Archer]

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Paul Manafort is set to go on trial Tuesday, but it won’t be for conspiring with Russians to help elect President Donald Trump. In a hearing last week in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Greg Andres, a top prosecutor under Special Counsel Robert Mueller, said that prosecutors “don’t intend to mention alleged collusion with the Russians” during the trial of Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.

Nor have prosecutors accused Manafort of conspiring with Moscow as part of a separate case in Washington, DC, scheduled to go to trial in September, in which Manafort faces charges that include money laundering, fraud, illegal lobbying, and obstruction of justice.

Trump and some of his defenders contend that Mueller’s prosecution of Manafort on charges unrelated to collaboration with Russia during the 2016 election means such evidence does not exist. But that is a flawed assumption. The special counsel has constructed cases that offer the best chance of convicting Manafort, building on investigations that began years before the 2016 race. If Manafort is convicted, prosecutors may hope to use what could essentially amount to a life sentence to push him to cooperate with their broader investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Mueller also has reason to avoid charging Manafort now with crimes that might involve conspiracy with Russians. (Though “collusion” is not a crime, prosecutors could bring conspiracy charges against Americans involved in disseminating emails or data stolen from Democrats.) Doing so would require Mueller to publicly share evidence for those charges, which would mean exposing information important to his ongoing investigation.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/paul-manafort-donald-trump-russia-collusion/

[Fred Sanders]

1. Bookmark! Manafort Trial For Dummies guide!

[paranoid floyd]

2. A must read to get up to speed.

One commenter on the story that is so spot on in terms of the length of the investigation that another commenter was whining about;

“So let it play out. Given the way the GOP has Benghazied Hillary, it's your turn to sit quietly while the courts work this out”.