Beren wrote:Trump's posted 12 tweets about the Dems, Podesta, Fake News, Benghazi, Halloween, and his great accomplishments in the last 8 hours since "...Also, there is NO COLLUSION!", a real tweet storm! He's awesome indeed!
Trump is right. All this winning is exhausting.
For some additional legal analysis:
The Manafort Indictment: Not Much There, and a Boon for TrumpAndrew C McCarthy wrote:Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment). This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the media call “the attack on our democracy” (i.e., the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in “collusion” with the Trump campaign). Essentially, Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from 2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering conspiracy.
I'm not fooled at all. I'm amazed that lobbyists make this much money, though. They do very little and are paid exhorbitantly. I wonder if they have all donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Andrew C McCarthy wrote:On first glance, Mueller’s case, at least in part, seems shaky and overcharged. Even though the Ukrainian money goes back to 2006, the counts involving failure to file FBARs (Counts Three through Nine) go back only to 2012. This is likely because the five-year statute of limitations bars prosecution for anything before then. Obviously, one purpose of the conspiracy count (Count One) is to enable prosecutors, under the guise of establishing the full scope of the scheme, to prove law violations that would otherwise be time-barred.
Right. It's total crap. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel here to try to blackmail Manafort into saying Trump had ties to the Russians. Manafort was the tie.
Andrew C McCarthy wrote:The offense of failing to register as a foreign agent (Count Ten) may be a slam-dunk, but it is a violation that the Justice Department rarely prosecutes criminally. There is often ambiguity about whether the person’s actions trigger the registration requirement, so the Justice Department’s practice is to encourage people to register, not indict them for failing to do so. It may well be that Manafort and Gates made false statements when they belatedly registered as foreign agents, but it appears that Mueller’s office has turned one offense into two, an abusive prosecutorial tactic that flouts congressional intent. Specifically, Congress considers false statements in the specific context of foreign-agent registration to be a misdemeanor calling for zero to six months’ imprisonment. (See Section 622(a)(2) of Title 22, U.S. Code.) That is the offense Mueller charges in Count Eleven. But then, for good measure, Mueller adds a second false-statement count (Count Twelve) for the same conduct — charged under the penal-code section (Section 1001 of Title 18, U.S. Code) that makes any falsity or material omission in a statement to government officials a felony punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. Obviously, one cannot make a false statement on the foreign-agent registration form without also making a false statement to the government. Consequently, expect Manafort to argue that] Mueller has violated double-jeopardy principles by charging the same exact offense in two separate counts, and that the special counsel is undermining Congress’s intent that the offense of providing false information on a foreign-agent registration form be considered merely a misdemeanor.
See? This whole thing is politically motivated. Even Manafort can play victim now.
Andrew C McCarthy wrote:From President Trump’s perspective, the indictment is a boon from which he can claim that the special counsel has no actionable collusion case. It appears to reaffirm former FBI director James Comey’s multiple assurances that Trump is not a suspect. And, to the extent it looks like an attempt to play prosecutorial hardball with Manafort, the president can continue to portray himself as the victim of a witch hunt.
Exactly. Trump is just tearing it up.
Beren wrote:Trump tweets extremely much, especially when nothing burger happens.
Clearly, they have nothing on Trump.
Beren wrote:Hillary hasn't tweeted anything since the day before yesterday, Obama's last tweet has been posted yesterday, but they don't tweet anything for a week or two sometimes.
Per the 5th Amendment, they have the right to remain silent. Hillary Clinton commissioned this obviously false Russia narrative with campaign money. She ran it through an attorney--probably to assert Lawyer-Client privilege--but failed to disclose that payment to the FEC as the opposition research that it was. She violated FEC laws. It will be interesting to see if they prosecute her on that too. Probably not, because it is clear that the law doesn't apply to Hillary Clinton. Those of you who supported Hillary Clinton financially, they spent ten fucking million dollars on a complete bullshit dossier that the media wouldn't touch until Comey met with the president, making it newsworthy. I could write up that level of bullshit for $100k and feel guilty about it.
Then, the FBI started eavesdropping on Trump with a dossier they all knew was a fake. This is blowing up in their faces.
SonofNewo concurs.
Mueller, Manafort and the Papadopoulos Plea: Not What it SeemsPaul Manafort and Rick Gates were apparently interacting with Mercury Public Relations and The Podesta Group. Tony Podesta just resigned following the indictment--and he's not even named in it yet. John Podesta was Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. Yet, the media couldn't find this out and report it? Oh, wait! That's right! They collude with the the DNC and Hillary campaign.
What about Veselnitskaya? The media didn't know that she was working with Fusion GPS--the same firm that fabricated the phony dossier? She needed an immigration parole from high up in the DoJ--at Loretta Lynch's level. Her reasoning was that she was to provide defense counsel, yet she tried to lobby the Trump's on repealing the Magnitsky Act. Why isn't she being indicted? Is it because she's with Hillary?
What will this mean for Mike Pence? Pence is only VP because of Manafort. Pence and Manafort were buddy buddy. It will be interesting if Trump asks for Pence's resignation, but I think that is premature.
The Papadopolous story is interesting, because the plea indicates that the professor "claimed" to have ties to the Russians via its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but does not establish that he actually did have such ties. The female seems to be Veselnitskaya again. "Source D" is the Byelorussian guy Millian who states that he was in regular contact with Papadopolous, and he was a source in this fake dossier financed by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
All of this isn't leading to Donald Trump's door step. It's all leading back to Hillary Clinton.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden