Former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort has surrendered to authorities. Source: All of them. Charges include:
Money laundering (a REALLY serious charge).
Conspiracy against the US (which sounds even more serious, but I have no idea).
Any lawyers in the house?
Please share widely!
JimC says
Text of indictment here.
Charley on the MTA says
I don’t know but 🍿🍿🍿🍿
fredrichlariccia says
Papadopoulos pled guilty to perjury. He lied to the FBI and could get up to six months in jail. He struck a plea bargain with the prosecution and the Trumpists are shitting themselves over the first rat to jump ship.
Mark L. Bail says
Papadopoulos was first arrested in July He’s been cooperating for a while now.
johntmay says
As was explained on WBUR this afternoon, Manafort’s actions are not tied to the Trump campaign but are a very big deal. Papadopoulos’s action are tied to the Trump campaign but may not be a very big deal. What Papadopoulos did was not criminal, but lying about it was. The questions now are, why did he lie and who in the Trump campaign knew about it – or supported it, if any did.
This is a fascinating chess game to watch, and Trump is playing checkers.
Mark L. Bail says
See my post with quotes from LawFare. (I don’t mean to quibble with you, but whoever was on WBUR probably hasn’t completely processed the indictments or their meaning).
Laundering $75 million is a big deal, so is evading taxes in this amount. Having such a criminal in charge of your campaign is a big deal.
Manafort was literally working for Russia at the same time he was managing Trump’s campaign for free. That’s a big deal.
Manafort was at the meeting with Veselnitskaya when they discussed getting dirt on Clinton. That’s a big deal.
Manafort was with Cohen, Sater, and a Ukrainian tool of the Russians when they formulated a “peace plan” for Russia. The public evidence is highly incriminating. That’s a big deal.
johntmay says
Yes, what Manafort did is a big deal and I stated as such. However, the dates on the “big deal things” do not overlap with the Trump campaign, they were before.
The Papadopoulos has stronger ties to the Trump campaign.
Mark L. Bail says
I’m not clear what you mean about dates overlapping the Trump campaign. His “termination” as campaign chair doesn’t mean his involvement began or ended during his tenure.
The Veselnitskaya meeting was in June 2016 when Manafort was campaign chair. This was when Don, Jr. set up the meeting to discuss dirt on Clinton.
The indictment isn’t meant to be exhaustive of Manafort’s behavior, and as multiple commentators have pointed out, these charges don’t preclude additional charges. These charges are more document-based in that they don’t excessively rely on on testimony as direct evidence.
An assumption is that Russia was paying him when he was campaign chair.
johntmay says
I just scanned the text of the indictment quickly and it seems that all of the dates in question were prior to the formation of the Trump campaign.
Christopher says
Conspiracy against the US sounds like treason-lite, charged because an actual treason case is so tough to make. It is the only crime not only defined by the Constitution, but the burden of proof thereof is explicitly stated in the Constitution.
Mark L. Bail says
Treason is tough to make because it has to happen in war time. We are not at war with Russia. Right now, the only country that could prompt treason charges would be North Korea.
jconway says
I don’t think we need to call it treason to prosecute collusion, and that discussion frankly distracts from the serious and severity of our mission. It is important to keep this process as non-partisan as possible, even in the face of an extremist Republican party committed to partisanship at all costs. The last thing we need to do is make this a Hillary v. Trump issue, which is exactly how Trump and his propaganda team are playing this as. It’s an American Constitution vs. the President issue and the Presidency vs. the President issue. Let’s not lose sight of that fact.
Trump could’ve lost soundly, as many of us hoped and predicted, and still deserved prosecution over what is looking like collusion with a foreign government to influence a domestic political campaign.
Christopher says
We definitely do not need to call it treason. There is a whole set of laws that can be defined as actions against the United States such as the Espionage Act or the Logan Act as just a couple of examples.