tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post3758460681272195410..comments2024-03-28T09:13:04.373-04:00Comments on KIKO'S HOUSE: In A Stunning Russia Scandal Development, Manafort Will Cooperate With MuellerShaun Mullenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14964214385216513188noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-80260369075170664632018-09-15T10:59:40.291-04:002018-09-15T10:59:40.291-04:00Glad to see, though of course it should have been ...Glad to see, though of course it should have been obvious & expected, that Weissmann was the prosecutor on this one. It proves, I think, that the deal they wrung from PM was & will continue to be a stringent unwinding of monetary facts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-71734152307733426872018-09-14T17:00:32.161-04:002018-09-14T17:00:32.161-04:00He's gone from ostrich jackets to orange jumps...He's gone from ostrich jackets to orange jumpsuits and I think he's missing some of the simpler comforts of his former life. Unlike Cohen, who was lambasted by his Auschwitz-surviving father who wanted the name "kept clean", Manafort is driven by pure self-interest and greed. But who cares, as long as he can help connect Trump to Russia.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-14661118779838559702018-09-14T12:53:52.076-04:002018-09-14T12:53:52.076-04:00Wow! Manafort seemingly did not trust Trump to com...Wow! Manafort seemingly did not trust Trump to come through with a pardon. The reason Manafort decided to have two trials instead of one (it was his option) probably was so that if he lost at the first trial, Trump would have a chance to pardon him before the second one. So why didn't Trump pardon him? I suspect Trump decided that the political costs would be too high. He kept signaling to Manafort that he was in his corner, but Manafort knows a treacherous snake when he sees one, and he decided he did not want to spend the rest of his life in jail. (Plus, he knew that even if he got a pardon from Trump, there was a good chance he would be charged at the state level for similar financial crimes.) <br /><br />As an aside, the fact that Great Britain was able to identify and share with the world Skripal's would-be murderers perhaps gave Manafort some assurance that Putin may have learned a lesson about ordering hits on foreign soil. The Russian bear got bopped on the nose.Bscharlotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06667913621618808338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-30760300393973293572018-09-13T10:09:13.444-04:002018-09-13T10:09:13.444-04:00Very interesting conversation, gentlemen!Very interesting conversation, gentlemen!Dan Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01603402268945559679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-68943421822743531692018-09-12T10:51:14.822-04:002018-09-12T10:51:14.822-04:00Shaun: You were exactly right, and maybe that quo...Shaun: You were exactly right, and maybe that quote from your earlier post was where I first got the idea. The fact that Putin attaches so much significance to Manafort keeping silent is telling. After all, he had to anticipate sanctions against Russia after the murder attempt. And come to think of it, maybe the fact that Skripal's daughter was also poisoned was deliberate -- Manafort has two daughters, as I recall. Should you and I fear finding goo on our door handles for pointing these thing out?Bscharlotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06667913621618808338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-64292792295823424862018-09-12T10:33:34.498-04:002018-09-12T10:33:34.498-04:00Brad:
In my view, you are correct, and the timing...<i>Brad:</i><br /><br />In my view, you are correct, and the timing you point out is astutely telling.<br /><br />As I wrote the afternoon the Manafort jury came in . . . <br /><br />"Manafort, who like his former boss believes he is smarter than everyone else, gambled that it was better to take his chances with a jury than to find a strange substance smeared on his door handle one day." <br /><br />Shaun Mullenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14964214385216513188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-34327148309130980422018-09-12T10:17:23.289-04:002018-09-12T10:17:23.289-04:00As an addendum to the above, let me raise the ques...As an addendum to the above, let me raise the question of why Putin choose to poison Sergei Skripal (and, perhaps unintentionally, his daughter Yulia) last March in England. Skripal had been released from a Russian prison in 2010 as part of a spy swap and then he settled in the UK. Why, eight years later, would Putin bother? And why would he choose to use a nerve agent that would leave no doubt that the Kremlin was responsible?<br /><br />It strikes me likely that intimidation of Manafort was the whole point. Manafort was out on bail at the start of this year, no doubt weighing his options and perhaps wondering why Trump had not yet pardoned him. Then his partner in crime, Rick Gates, agreed on Feb. 23 to flip, making it clear that Manafort stood no real chance in court. Then the Skripals were poisoned *just eight days later* on March 3. That's quite a coincidence -- or not. <br /><br />It seems likely that Putin immediately saw the danger after Gates flipped that Manafort would follow suit unless Putin could concentrate Manafort's mind on lethal consequences. So it took just over a week to get the hit effort on Skripal set up. The fact that Skripal survived probably provides little comfort to Manafort. If Kremlin agents come after him, the objective will be to make the murder seem like an accident -- and Putin's thugs have been quite efficient at arranging lethal accidents.Bscharlotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06667913621618808338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-73840683918616000852018-09-12T10:04:21.736-04:002018-09-12T10:04:21.736-04:00Brad:
You shoulda been a prosecutor.<i>Brad:</i><br /><br />You shoulda been a prosecutor.Shaun Mullenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14964214385216513188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-51114514855443503282018-09-12T08:35:41.311-04:002018-09-12T08:35:41.311-04:00He wanted to live like an oligarch. Now he is a ru...He wanted to live like an oligarch. Now he is a ruined man. An interesting case study of greed gone haywire. Can he at least partly redeem himself by flipping? Does he care about how future historians might regard him? Or is he more immediately concerned with Putin's thugs and how they nearly killed a former Kremlin employee and his daughter in the UK with a nerve agent? <br /><br />There are no easy answers. He's a schmuck who cozied up to murderous dictators so he could live like a two-bit Trump. Does he risk spending the rest of his life in prison? (Because as you note, even if he gets a pardon, state charges would likely keep him behind bars.) Or does he risk his very life and the lives of his daughters by flipping? <br /><br />In his shoes I'd probably flip and assume that not even Putin would have the nerve to commit a high-profile murder on American soil. But he knows Putin better than I do.Bscharlotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06667913621618808338noreply@blogger.com