Manafort defense rests...

The defense rested without putting on a case. The judge threw out their motion to dismiss charges.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/defense-rests-fraud-trial-trump-campaign-chairman-paul-57170860

He could never testify, because he would open the door on cross examination, and the prosecutors are NOT done with Manafort. If anybody thinks that these prosecutors are soft, please wait. I am surprised that there was no witness called. Actually, I am stunned. The prosecution of this case was machine like and although Manafort had excellent lawyers, I still do not understand not doing a deal to lower his jail sentence, and some cooperation because this man will die in prison. I guess his fear of the Russian Mob, the Oligarchs, and Putin make it an easy decision.....do the time and shut up like a good mobster.

He's got another trial coming up in D.C. in September for money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent, so he's gotta be worried.

I figure he's expecting a pardon if he's found guilty on this one but I wouldn't be surprised if Trump stalls on that until after the 2020 election. The political consequences would be terrible to say the least, especially if the Republicans lose the House in November.

With any luck, the judge will remand him to custody right away if he's found guilty.

othershoe1030 wrote:In TrumpWorld there are no political consequences. If he says he had a good reason for doing it, or none at all, his cultists will accept a pardon just as they have for Sheriff Joe, etc. I think Manifest is quiet because of the Russian mob, not because he's sure of a pardon.

The political consequences wouldn't be with his base, it'd be with Congress. If he pardoned Manafort before the November election, I think it would be really damaging for Republicans, especially if Mueller releases a damning report before then. His diehard supporters are less than half of the Republican voters and I think more and more of the rest of them would turn away.

And what's Trump going to do if Manafort loses the September trial, pardon him again?

Maybe Manafort knows he will get a (shhhhh!) ........ P-A-R-D-O-N?

EmeraldGhost wrote:Maybe Manafort knows he will get a (shhhhh!) ........  P-A-R-D-O-N?

That's my take but after the midterms. Manafort doesn't seem to worried about a conviction. Trump doesn't seem to care what the electorate thinks other than his base and they believe anything he says.

When the defense doesn't put on any witnesses or present any evidence of their own, it's usually because their argument to the jury is going to be that the prosecution hasn't met the required burden-of-proof standard to convict.

Manafort's defense is also apparently making an argument that the prosecution of their client is politically motivated and would not have otherwise been initiated but for that; and that the prosecution is stacking charges to make the alleged offenses seem more probable by sheer volume.  No doubt they hammered on Rick Gates credibility as witness for the prosecution ..... an admitted and proven liar, embezzler, thief, adulterer, etc who has everything to gain by continuing to lie.   I would like to read their entire closing argument if I can find it. 

Whether this strategy will fly with the jury remains to be seen.  These are all high-paid high-powered attorneys ... you can bet they're not just floundering around.  They do have a strategy.  In the Federal system It only takes one stubborn juror to cause a mistrial, so they only have to sway one.  Watch carefully how long the jury deliberates .... the longer, the better for the defendant is usually the case.   In any case, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.   And if he's convicted, I would not at all be surprised if it is not on all charges and that Trump grants him a pardon.

Manafort's crime is refusing to tell lies about the President for Rosenstein's inquisitioner-in-chief Robert Mueller.

Hopefully the jury will see through this nonsense and acquit.

othershoe1030 wrote:

Deus X wrote:He's got another trial coming up in D.C. in September for money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent, so he's gotta be worried.

I figure he's expecting a pardon if he's found guilty on this one but I wouldn't be surprised if Trump stalls on that until after the 2020 election. The political consequences would be terrible to say the least, especially if the Republicans lose the House in November.

With any luck, the judge will remand him to custody right away if he's found guilty.

In TrumpWorld there are no political consequences. If he says he had a good reason for doing it, or none at all, his cultists will accept a pardon just as they have for Sheriff Joe, etc. I think Manifest is quiet because of the Russian mob, not because he's sure of a pardon.

The Russian mobster is our president now, not their useful idiot in our White House.

ConservaLady wrote:Manafort's crime is refusing to tell lies...

The mind reels!

Rosenstein should've recused himself as he signed off on the second round of fisa warrants based on the dossier.

Sloppy and dirty... based on bs russian counterintelligence as exhibit #1. Heads need to roll.

He'll end up with a Russian ice pick in his skull.

If there were questions or irregularities with Manafort's and his companies' taxes why didn't the IRS just do an audit?

Manafort faces 300+ years in prison for alleged tax evasion and is being held in solitary confinement because the leftist loony Clinton cabal wants his scalp . This is all because he worked for Trump for 3 months and he refused to lie when the unconstitutional Special Prosecutor came calling.

Then, in New Mexico, a loony liberal judge (SF native), allows a Muslim terrorist clan who murdered a child and was training others to shoot up schools, to be released on low bail.

Do we need more proof what a mental disorder liberalism is?

Manafort's crime is refusing to tell lies about the President for Rosenstein's inquisitioner-in-chief Robert Mueller.

Hopefully the jury will see through this nonsense and acquit.


You do not even understand the issues before the jury. The man hid income and did not pay taxes. You think any conservative approves of criminal behavior where folks do not pay their taxes.....what fringe nut jobs are feeding you with this ignorance?

Legal experts agree that a jury should spend about one day for each week of trial to go over the evidence. This would mean that the Jury should reach a verdict by Monday. However, the longer the Jury takes to reach a decision after Monday is NOT a good sign for the prosecutors. It only takes one person who somebody got to on the Jury list. The untouchables and anybody living in Chicago knows that judges and juries can be dirty. I am getting an uncomfortable feeling that the Russian mob is much more relevant across the board in America. When your leader abdicates his role to protect America, and then start talking about this Russian stooge on trial as being an unfair trial.....it will impact jurors this weekend. The President knows this and the defense lawyers encouraged the same for thanking him for his support. This is cook county dirty.

JURISPRUDENCE
THE LAW, LAWYERS, AND THE COURT.    OCT. 30 2017 4:53 PM

How Russia May Have Turned Paul Manafort

The indictment against him suggests his work for Ukraine could have led him into a trap.

By John Reed

This piece was originally published on Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. national security law and policy.

171018_LOGO_Just-Security


Make no mistake: Paul Manafort’s arrest is very likely directly tied to Russian intelligence operations. Even a quick look at his indictment shows this. In Ukraine, Manafort made millions of dollars between 2006 and 2015 working to advance the agenda of the Party of Regions, a political organization with close ties to Russia. He then, according to the indictment, laundered those millions through Cyprus, a country widely known as the laundromat of choice for wealthy Russians. “Start with Cyprus. Any time you see Russia and Cyprus connected, it’s a huge red flag,” an investment banker with experience in Eastern Europe told me months ago after I asked how one would search for financial ties between Trump and Russia.

Given how thoroughly Russian intelligence had penetrated Ukraine’s government by 2014, the Kremlin, at the very least, had to have known about Manafort’s illegal activities, giving it leverage to turn him into an asset. This is a move straight out of the customary Russian intelligence playbook.

Much of this saga turns on Manafort’s work with the Party of Regions. This organization isn’t your run-of-the-mill political party. The party reportedly draws the majority of its support from the province of Donetsk, where Russian operatives have stoked political and ethnic tensions and are waging war against the Ukrainian government. Its members have reportedly advanced the cause of reintegrating Ukraine with Russia, with one of them apparently doing so while holding a powerful seat in the Crimean legislature as Russia moved to annex Crimea. Perhaps its most famous member is former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Moscow (along with his prime minister, another party member) during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that ousted his government.

Not only was Manafort, in essence, advancing the Kremlin’s agenda in Ukraine, he was also doing so without registering with the United States government as a foreign agent, and he was then laundering the profits he was making from this activity. If this information were to have been made public, there would have been a great chance that Manafort would’ve faced arrest in the United States. As soon as he started these activities, then, Russian intelligence likely had him in its clutches. As Just Security’s Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA official, explained, such a trap would line up well with Moscow’s standard methods for recruiting foreign agents, wittingly or unwittingly, and may have turned Manafort, who has business ties with Russia going back at least to 2006.

Mowatt-Larssen wrote:

Any past or existing business deals that violate sanctions and other legal constraints would be another area that the FSB could have sought to find creative ways to exploit vulnerabilities among Trump associates in order to compromise them. Whether such an approach relies on exploiting simple corruption or greed, or involves a more sophisticated operation, would depend on the wants and vulnerabilities of their specific target and objectives.
The most critical objective for Russian intelligence to engage Trump campaign staffers would not be to consummate business deals, but to use business deals as the basis for developing a target for recruitment purposes. … And remember a Russian strategy is to offer lucrative but illicit deals that many people would have a hard time resisting so as to co-opt, compromise, and recruit that person.

The FBI’s counterintelligence agents likely suspected this, taking out FISA warrants against Manafort starting in 2014. As Asha Rangappa wrote, those initial warrants, which had to be approved by a judge every 90 days, eventually expired, offering a possible clue about his involvement with Russian intelligence:

If Manafort was already being developed by Russian intelligence since 2014, and was approached in a more concrete, operational way around summer 2016, then they would likely want him to begin communicating with them through other means than he was already using. If this happened, collection on the lines, accounts, or facilities targeted by the initial FISA order would go dry, and would explain why the surveillance ceased. In other words, there was no longer any foreign intelligence activity happening on the first FISA—but that’s because it was happening somewhere else.

Now the FBI has him, and is likely to press him for all of the information he has on Russia’s involvement in a host of activities, not the least of which involves the 2016 elections and Manafort’s potential role as the sinew connecting Trump’s circle with Moscow. (For more on this, see John Sipher’s Just Security article analyzing the Steele dossier alongside media reports of Manafort’s potential ties to the Russians during the 2016 campaign.)

Once news reports of his shadowy work in Ukraine began emerging, Manafort likely became low-hanging fruit for the investigation. We can’t predict what’s coming next, but we do know Robert Mueller’s team will be squeezing Manafort for dirt about others’ involvement in addition to his own.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/how_russian_intelligence_may_have_turned_paul_manafort_into_an_asset.html

More from Just Security:

A Timeline of Paul Manafort’s Relationship With the Trump World

Mueller Has Authority to Name President Trump as an “Unindicted Co-Conspirator”

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Slate... lol. Sooo... why weren't any of those salacious charges brought? This ought to be good.  

Slate... lol. Sooo... why weren't any of those salacious charges brought? This ought to be good.  Rolling Eyes


The reason additional charges have NOT been brought is that it might interfere with an ongoing investigation.  Let me put it in poker terms.

You are dealt the ace of clubs and the three of clubs.  You are the big blind so you stay.  The flop reveals an ace of diamonds, three of diamonds, and three of hearts.  You have just been dealt a well hidden full boat.  Do you bet big to steal some small bets, or go with the flow until the River?   The King of diamonds is on the turn, and others bet and you call.  The river comes and it is the queen of diamonds.  Four to the flush.  three to the straight, and some kings and aces probalby out.  Do you pull the trigger or wait to others bet and raise?

If you can answer that poker problem, you already know the reason the special prosecutor is holding his cards to his vest.......he wants the big score.

Except I'm "that guy" at the poker table and get paid because I'd take that pot down without either card 3 out of 5 times. So the greater suspicion would be my checking the flop. Actually having the cards is just a bonus.

I play my opponent's cards the majority of the time

Then make a small raise, but no poker player worth their salt would pass up the donkey with the straight or flush calling all in. The special counsel is not going to show a lay down before he draws out all the players.

2seaoat wrote: ..... If you can answer that poker problem, you already know the reason the special prosecutor is holding his cards to his vest.......he wants the big score.

Well the Democrats and their media mouthpieces certainly better hope that is the case. Because if Mueller doesn't get his "big score" ... Trump will be seemingly vindicated in all his public protestations of "No Collusion" and "Witch Hunt" he's been making this whole time, and you can be sure he won't let the electorate forget it come 2020.

Manafort is not going to be found not guilty. The paper trail is there. He didn't pay taxes and hid accounts. You can't get around that. My concern is Trump is going to pardon him and the defense is not worried about a conviction. I'm sure Mueller has a plan for that.

Vikingwoman wrote:  .....  He didn't pay taxes and hid accounts. You can't get around that.  ....

If taxes weren't paid' accounts not reported that were legally required to be; and false information was included on loan application documents ... Manafort's legal team says it was not proven by the prosecution's evidence and witnesses that those things were done at Manafort's personal direction or with his direct conscious knowledge.

No don't take what I'm saying there wrong .... I'm not claiming Manafort didn't direct certain activities or have knowledge of them ... I'm just questioning did the prosecution prove he did? .... beyond a reasonable doubt?

It will be interesting to see how the jury sees it.   I'm certainly not making any predictions.

(Saw something in the news this morning that Papadopoulos wife his hinting he  might withdraw his guilty plea now?   I imagine he'll wait to see how the Manafort trial comes out before he makes that decision)