BREAKING: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has tentatively agreed to a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller that is expected to head off his upcoming trial, sources familiar with the negotiations tell @ABC News. https://t.co/lNNV9VizCv pic.twitter.com/fUihKNEYYa
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) September 13, 2018
As Josh Marshall notes, a plea right now is a favor to Trump as it keeps the FARA for the Pro-Russian plutocrats out of the October news cycle.
This tentative Manafort plea deal reported by ABC isn't about flipping. It's Paul locking in his pardon (sub req) https://t.co/ezpEZnv38R
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 13, 2018
Open thread.
Frankensteinbeck
Good luck with that, Manafort. Throwing people under the bus is Trump’s way of life. He’s too mean-spirited and self-centered to rescue someone even if he would rescue himself in the process.
Schlemazel
So, apparently Mueller has suddenly become ultra stupid and will give away an opportunity to reach the real source in return for . . .
Nope, not buying it
Baud
I don’t understand these tweets. Surely, Manafort will have to spill the beans as part of the deal.
schrodingers_cat
I don’t follow Marshall’s reasoning.
Chip Daniels
Yeah, I don’t understand the idea of a pardon.
Wouldn’t that just remove any possibility of invoking the 5th in telling what he knows?
So far as I know, “I don’t wanna talk cuz the Russians will throw me out a window” isn’t a Constitutional protection.
Immanentize
Marshall is wed to his earlier prediction that Trump will pardon. It is a real failure of Josh’s — he gets out front of an idea and then continues to defend it against all logic or reason. The best example is his many posts saying that negligent gun deaths are “accidents.” They are not and they certainty don’t need to be called that….
Anyhoo, as I might have mentioned before, one does not need to include cooperation regarding your crime in a plea deal because cooperating with the government is ALWAYS an aspect of the sentencing process. No one in Trump land ever talks about this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, it makes no sense that Mueller would abandon what pretty much everyone said was a stronger case with a non-troll judge for nothing
and IANAL and have no idea what the legal strength of the various possible state charges are, but Mueller had that to hold over him, too.
Mary G
Couldn’t it just be that the evidence against him is so strong, he knows he will be pronounced guilty, and can’t or doesn’t want to pay lawyers to fight a losing cause?
raven
A Member Of South Carolina’s Gullah Community On Staying Behind During A Hurricane
I was at Sapelo Island last week and there is a small Gullah Community there.
raven
@raven: The Gullah, sometimes known as the Gullah Geechee, are a group of African-American people who populate the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, speak a distinctive creole language and retain a culture rich in African influences. Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine is an author, lecturer and preservationist who founded the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition to advocate for the continuation of the Gullah Geechee culture. The following was written as she and her community prepared to ride out Hurricane Florence on St. Helena Island in South Carolina.
Mary G
New Time Magazine cover unveiled – three teachers talking about the extra jobs and donating blood plasma they have to do to cover their bills. All women. Republicans should be quaking in their boots.
cmorenc
If there’s to be any pardon(s), it would be after the mid-term elections. By making that observation, I’m not necessarily agreeing with Josh that a pardon is forthcoming, rather that IF he turns out to be right, a week or tow post-mid-term election is the time Trump could do so with the least immediate political blowback – lots of time before 2020 elections.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize:
Agree with this and the similar sentiments expressed in the thread.
Chyron HR
@Mary G:
No way, once their blood is drained they’ll be too weak to do any lasting damage with their feeble punches!
Gelfling 545
Manafort may well forsee additional legal actions in his future. State tax issues, etc. It all adds up to a lot of money and he strikes me as the type who’d part with a limb sooner than $$$.
Mike in NC
@Mary G: Dubya called that “living the American Dream” with apparent sincerity.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
again, IANAL, but Renato Mariotti’s thread seems to suggest that it depends on if this is a deal or a straight up guilty plea. If I’m reading correctly, there’s not much Mueller can do if Manafort just straight up gives up, gave up, and pleads guilty.
Gelfling 545
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No he can’t but he need not offer him any incentive to do so afaik.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gotta do dinner, but this is not true. The range of punishment in federal cases is set by the US Sentencing Guidlines, which is a statutory rubric for punishment. If one were pleaded straight up to everything, then one would be required to come clean on everything pleaded guilty to. Or else your sentence goes up, not down, from the guidelines presumptive range. The less you help, the more you serve. If in fact Manafort straight up pleads to all, if I were the prosecutor, I would subpoena his ass to the GJ immediately. This would test the pardon theory.
dexwood
@raven:
Fantastic heritage of quilting. I am lucky enough to own one. A few years ago, the folk art museum in Santa Fe put up a great exhibit of their quilts which was stunning.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That is also how I understand it, too.
I would assume, however, that if that is the case, that there are plenty of state violations that Manafort could be on the hook for and I would also assume that Mueller has passed on any and all evidence that could bolster said possible state charges. But IANAL. Also too.
dexwood
In moderation on my reply to raven. Entered incorrect, fat fingered email address. A little help, please.
geg6
@Immanentize:
Oooo, I like that!
Frankensteinbeck
@Mike in NC:
It is astonishing that Trump manages to be a worse person and a worse president than W, with the possible exception that the Iraq War has done so much damage it may drown out everything else. W was vile.
He wasn’t vile enough for the base, however. They wanted the biggest asshole they could get.
raven
@dexwood: I know SOME people don’t want to hear about no hurricanes but, surprisingly, I don’t care.
dexwood
@raven:
My reply concerned the Gullah quilt tradition. Fantastic.
raven
@dexwood: Oh cool, have you seen Daughters of the Dust?
TenguPhule
ICE says it needs a $1 billion funding boost to meet Trump’s aggressive deportation goals
Call me paranoid, but $1 billion to an unaccountable agency would go a long way to paying for Trump’s personal Imperial Death troopers in DC.
Mike in NC
@Frankensteinbeck: “Mission Accomplished”, we could say.
NotMax
Do read much on TPM but very little anymore with Marshall’s byline as he has morphed from reporting to pontificating.
dexwood
@raven:
Just hopped in the googlemobile. I now plan to see it.
raven
@dexwood: Fascinating film and it’s on Netflix. Julie Dash specifically made it without subtitles because she wanted people watching it to hear the dialogue it if they were a child hearing a new language for the first time. Now that I’ve seen it that way I want to see it with subtitles so I have a better sense of what is being said.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Immanentize: To be fair, no one in Individual-1 world is terribly bright.
eemom
@NotMax:
Yglesias is worse.
hitchhiker
@Mary G:
I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. He’s going to get convicted if he goes to trial. The question is what he’s going to plead to, exactly. If he pleads guilty to all the charges just as they’re written, he’s saved everybody a bunch of time and money, AND he’s helping the Republicans by not forcing the spectacle of a public trial. How much does that reduce a possible sentence?
If he pleads guilty to only some things, I guess it’s on Mueller to decide whether or not to try him on the rest, with (guessing) some kind of side deal regarding cooperation.
TaMara (HFG)
I thought Manafort had jeopardy in state trials, too. So a federal pardon would only address one issue. Or am I thinking of one of the many other corrupt weasels in Mueller’s crosshairs?
TenguPhule
@NotMax: How’s it hanging in Maui? Still Raining hard like on Oahu?
dexwood
Dinner… I like the idea of listening the first time.
khead
@Mary G:
This seems like a good time to post this again.
I thought there would be a problem with this issue of public unions and teachers but apparently not. They were first to stand up and still going. I will guess nurses are next up. Also, the numbers may be a little off because I’ve been beating this dead horse for a while but you get the idea.
JMG
It takes two for a plea bargain. Mueller’s office has its reasons and we, and more importantly Trump, don’t know what they are.
spudgun
@Mary G: OMG, the comments in that thread make me want to punch something…
Mary G
Voldemort is fixing the game in Florida:
I hope Adam and Betty can weigh in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@spudgun: without looking, how many of them mention “three months paid vacation”? That was an obsession of a couple of my right wing uncles
NotMax
@TenguPhule
Hard rain coming down at intervals. Very blustery today, forecast of thunderstorms tonight. Thankfully, the humidity is not as unrelentingly oppressive today as yesterday.
debbie
@raven:
This is not good news.
khead
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
First comment.
JPL
@TaMara (HFG): Some states have double jeopardy laws, so unless the charge is different they will not try to indict him. NY State has that law.
Sasha
It occurs that accepting a pardon is legally requirement also accepting a guilty verdict, so gonna suck if state and civil cases are filled against him.
Cheryl Rofer
That livecam off Cape Fear looks like it’s been trashed.
Mainmata
A President proviiding a pardon to a co-conspirator was posed as a hypothetical during the Constitutional Convention and James Madison basically said that it would be grounds for immediate impeachment so all those conservative lovers of originalism are kind of in a box. And someone needs to tell our fascist Ptesident that too.
raven
@debbie: Oh they are about crushed. Most have been totally run off their homes by skyrocketing property taxes and such.
raven
@Cheryl Rofer: Nah, it’s just pitch black out there.
Cheryl Rofer
@raven: That’s possible.
debbie
@raven:
Fucking taxes, but thanks. I just reserved the DVD at my library.
ESM
I really don’t understand Marshall’s thinking on this one. Manafort would instantly lose his right to plead the fifth. He would be forced to tell all or face new charges.
Moreover, Manafort is exposed on a number of areas at the state level where he could possibly face charges.
In addition to that I think it goes without saying that you use up a certain amount of political Capital with each pardon you hand out. There is a good chance Trump might have to pardon his own son at some point down the road. Thus, why would he waste a pardon on someone like Manafort who he couldn’t care less about and it wouldn’t really help him to do so anyway. Wouldn’t Trump want to save that first pardon in his back pocket to use on someone he really cares about such as his own son?
Moreover, it makes it much more difficult to Pardon someone who has actually admitted to guilt. Unlike the first trial where Trump could wrongfully claim it was a fixed trial and a jury didn’t really know what they were doing this is now Manafort actually admitting to guilt. That makes it much more difficult to actually pardon someone.
And finally, if Mueller accepts the plea deal I have to think he’s getting something out of it. Thus, how would it help Trump to hand out a pardon after Manafort has already given some crucial information to Mueller. It just doesn’t make sense.
JPL
OT Columbia Gas company in MA has a big problem, but not as much as the 120,000 residents. The cities of Lawrence, Andover and North Andover are having to evacuate because of gas explosions.
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2018/09/13/gas-explosions-fires-lawrence-andover-north-andover
Mary G
Wow, the Boston situation is getting worse:
raven
@debbie: Here’s a review for ya:
khead
Must be infrastructure week.
Andover gas explosions.
Nicole
@JPL: True. Fortunately, some of the stuff he’s charged with are things like lying on his federal tax return, and it stands to reason he also lied on his state tax return. So there will be different, state-level charges they can file.
Mary G
@JPL: Massachusetts State Police confirm 70 fires, explosions, gas odors over wide swath of Lawrence and North Andover. This is getting bad.
Adam L Silverman
@Immanentize: @Major Major Major Major:
spudgun
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Other FABULOUS excuses that make me want to scream bluddy murder are “well, they aren’t managing their money very well, then”; “oh, tough life, I wish I had 3 months off a year!”; and “well, maybe they should get out of education if they aren’t making enough money – no one’s forcing them to do it!”
Jeebus, I hate people sometimes…
Cheryl Rofer
Map of the Massachusetts gas explosions.
I checked in with Tom Levenson on Twitter, and he says they’re 30-40 miles from him.
TenguPhule
@NotMax: Rain here minus the wind. I’m gonna need a new pair of shoes pretty soon. They just weren’t designed for 3 inch deep wading.
Adam L Silverman
There were some folks earlier trying to make sense of why the FBI would get a referral from Senator Feinstein for a potential crime that is past the statute of limitations. The short answer is that the FBI does a full, deep dive, background investigation, including interview, with Supreme Court nominees. Basically it is similar to what is done for high level security clearances for executive branch political appointees. The referral may be in regard to whether 1) the FBI knew about this and 2) if they did, was Judge Kavanaugh truthful in his answers to the investigator about it. If he wasn’t, that’s a Federal crime.
geg6
@Adam L Silverman:
I saw a bunch of lawyers on Ari’s show saying the same thing. Bad lawyering by Rudy once again. They considered this a huge mistake. And in Josh’s defense, he INAL. He’s a historian.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: That’s never going to clear the Senate.
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (HFG): He does. In NY, MD, DC, CA, and FL. Florida, as long as the AG is a Republican, is not something he has to worry about.
debbie
@raven:
Thanks. I believe I heard the filmmaker interviewed on Fresh Air.
raven
@debbie: Nice
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: It is unimaginable to me that such a large area can just have random places blowing up. If it is Columbia’s fault they need to be sued out of business. The exit ramps into the areas have been closed, so imagine returning from work and not being able to pick up your children.
Martin
@khead:
I’m with you on the nurses and teachers, but not the truckers. Nurses and teachers clearly add value to the task at hand. They make your medical and educational experience better, spot and fix problems, and provide emotional benefits.
Truckers do none of that. Something goes on the truck and in the best case scenario it comes off in exactly the same state. They can make it worse but they can’t make it better. We’ll pay for a better teacher, and for a better nurse, but nobody pays for a better truck driver. Any job with that dynamic will be automated as soon as we can figure out how, and we’re pretty close to solving it. These jobs will wind up much as the longshoremen did when containerization arrived – a few well paid jobs and everyone else losing their job. In the case of the longshoremen, the union was powerful enough to convince the ports to buy out the workers. And the benefits of containerization was so great that the ports went along. Trucking will likely go the same way.
⅓ of the cost to ship something is capex for the truck, ⅓ is for fuel/maintenance/permits, etc. and ⅓ is labor. The ⅓ labor savings is attractive to eliminate but it’s not enough to overthrow the industry as containerization was. The real benefits to automating trucking is getting around the 10 hour/day work limit. You can’t really drive a truck across country in less than 2 ½ days without breaking federal law, but you automate that truck and it can go 24/7. That brings a convenience benefit for consumers, but for a lot of goods it brings a lot more. Perishable items like food can cross the country much faster and require less refrigeration, etc. Producers will start to demand automated shipping for these benefits that human drivers can’t deliver. This is what’s going to wipe out those jobs, and if we don’t take a comparable strategy to longshoremen and insist they get bought out, it’s going to be catastrophic.
It doesn’t matter if we like that dynamic, it’s inevitable. We just don’t know when. And my fear is that so much energy will be spent fighting an unwinnable battle that the work necessary for the buyouts to happen will come too late to help anyone.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: The FBI is refusing to investigate and gave it to the White House, per Twitter.
This is a scary theory: Putin’s hackers could be behind the gas explosions:
I never know whether to take Jester seriously or not.
I have no concept of geography east of Nevada, but is Anne Laurie in the danger zone? Glad to see Tom is OK.
Ruviana
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The fun point here is that a lot of teachers don’t get a paid summer vacation. In addition, there’s also all kinds of non-class prep work. But trying to get to that first fall paycheck is a bitch!/Teacher’s kid.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
Invest in rain boots. This is becoming the new normal.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: “Daughters of the Dust” is about them. The first time I watched it, I couldn’t understand what was being said. But when I watched it more carefully a few years ago, I loved it. Need to visit and see their island up close.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Twitter says it’s a high school classmate who has accused BK of “sexual misconduct”
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
The spectacle of a SC judge saved by statute of limitations!
raven
@Patricia Kayden: Um, yea, I thought I said that it was. This was Sapelo Island last wee.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruviana: The district my mom taught in let people take their nine month salary over the course of the whole year.
Mary G
Not going to embed it, but Fox News is reporting that the police found marijuana in the apartment of Botham Jean, the Dallas resident who was shot in his own damn apartment by a cop that thought it was her. The ratio on the tweet is YUUGE.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Not surprising given who Rick Scott is. The League of Women Voters and the other groups that had their suit kicked by the FL Supreme Court will refile and the FL Supreme Court will stick their thumb in Rick Scott’s eye one last time by ruling in line with their precedents that a term ends at the end of the day, not the beginning of the day of the final day of a term of public service. There will be no appeal as this is solely a state matter, so the Federal courts won’t touch it. If Gillum is elected and he’ll then fire all the Scott appointees on the Judicial Nominating Committee, install his own appointees, get a list of names, and make the appointments. If DeSantis wins he’ll do the same thing, but you’ll get three conservative justices just as if Scott filled the appointments.
Is this something to be concerned about? Yes. Is it something that Gillum and his campaign team should use to drive turnout? Definitely. Especially as it can be used to further define Scott as a thief, which he is, in order to try to help drive turnout for Senator Nelson’s reelection. But at the end of the day I expect the Florida Supreme Court to protect itself.
Ruviana
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep, it varies–my college does that, thank god, but it’s still out there in some places. People also think teachers go home when the students do but all those papers and tests aren’t going to grade themselves, as much as the students might wish they did.
Schlemazel
@Mary G:
As if his being in posetion of a couple of joints justifies what she did to him. Gawd I want to give up my white card.
Schlemazel
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Mrs. district offered that but required it for non-teaching staff
Adam L Silverman
@raven: If only there was some high ranking, long serving, Federal official on a lifetime appointment of Gullah descent who could advocate on their behalf. Raise awareness. Help raise funds.
Or is that just crazy talk?
Martin
@Mary G:
Not sure what Russia gains by this, but this is the kind of thing that experts are worried about given the relative lack of security around our utilities/national infrastructure. If you consider just how complex the attack on Irans nuclear program was, and what the capability of state actors are, yeah, we should be worried about that sort of thing.
My vote is still on incompetence over malice, but we’ll find out soon enough.
JPL
@Mary G: The FBI is going to investigate the gas line explosions, but of course will ignore Kavanaugh.
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: I actually checked with one of our resident defense attorneys to verify this earlier today before I was willing to even put it in a comment.
I think there is something else going on here. Either Mueller is going to have the plea agreement do the talking, the way he has his indictments, or, as was the case with how Cohen was required to allocute in his plea, Mueller makes him implicate the President and/or Jr. and/or Jared and/or others as (currently/presently) unindicted coconspirators.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Sheeeeet. Every read “The Water is Wide” by Conroy? Thomas reminds me of the principal.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Jester should be taken seriously.
And what he’s delineated is plausible. Whether that is what happened in this case is still an open question, but the question needs to be asked and answered. My understanding is the FBI is part of the response and they will be looking into a cyberwarfare possibility.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: You got a link for this:
Adam L Silverman
Looks like Ty Cobb has decided to throw Stephen Miller under the bus:
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: If he lied to the FBI about it or failed to disclose it, then he’ll have issues that aren’t covered under the statute of limitations.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I have not read it. I will add it to the ever growing list.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Or watch Conrack with the pig Jon Voight before he went Nazi.
Shana
@Martin: What Russia gains is, presumably, further destabilization of the US, shortly before the midterms.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Have you seen how a modern port works? Yes the ships are not off/on loaded by hand or hoist nets, but now it requires a truck to accept the container from the ship and that takes a driver. As well we do a dramatically larger amount of freight haulage now than 40-50 yrs ago. All that crap made overseas……..
So while yes the number of people unloading ships is less it still takes a lot of people to move those goods. And automated freight hauling, autonomous trucks? We are real close now? In a perfect world maybe. This ain’t no perfect world, not even close. It’s going to be quite a while till the insurance costs for an unmanned truck is cheaper than the cost of a driver and his insurance, no matter how good the systems are. Because one truck that sensors fail or HAL takes over and runs down a bunch of people is going to be a massively bad lawsuit. For the trucking company, the truck mfg, the computer/sensor mfg, the software company if different, quite possibly the government for allowing it……
raven
@Adam L Silverman: In “The Death of Santini” Pat describes what happened when he got fired from that teaching job and became 1A. The General at the draft board in Columbia saw what a bullshit set-up it was and let him out. In the long run I’m not sure it was the best thing for him because he carried guilt with him over Vietnam his whole life. I wrote him after I read how he felt at the end of “My Losing Season” and he wrote me back!
raven
@Ruckus: Cans.
khead
@Martin:
Well, I somewhat agree with you about the truckers in the long term. There’s also a problem with the short term demographics. We are talking a lot more white men (66% of truckers) compared to the other two groups. Not exactly the perfect ally for the other two women dominated professions so that could be a problem.
However… in the short term truckers could shut down all road transit in major cities tomorrow if they really wanted to. See France. That could be a real asset. It may sound like a pipe dream but…
Also, I am a bit like Atrios with respect to automated trucking. It may be coming, but I suspect that full 24/7 thing you mentioned is further away than you do. I doubt I will see a truck make the trip from Bluefield, WV to Welch, WV on US 52 in my lifetime. So, we are still going to need them for short routes and deliveries.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just like professional athletes! What are these millionaire teachers complaining about?
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I can’t think of another administration that’s published as many rat fink books as quickly as this one.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Okay.
As I tell everyone, people all serve, especially now with an all volunteer force, for their own reasons. It can’t simply be reduced to being patriotic.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: So much winning!!!
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman:
It would be a damn shame if the bus ran over Miller. It would be more of a shame if it backed up and did it again. I’d hate for that to happen.
Uncle Cosmo
@khead: IIRC back in the spring of 1974 Baltimore City’s sanitation workers, police, & teachers were all on strike. The garbagemen & cops got what they wanted; the teachers got screwed. Because when the garbage isn’t collected, after a month the streets stink; when the cops aren’t on the beat, after a month the streets feel a lot less safe; but when the teachers aren’t teaching, the bad news doesn’t arrive for 8-10 years. People are not just selfish, they’e shortsighted to boot.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: OT: You’ll enjoy this:
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Well you know his old man was a legendary USMC fighter pilot?
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m sure Donald Trump seen Star Wars enough times to know exactly what to do to the Senate. //
TenguPhule
@debbie:
I have enough problems trying to get my feet into shoes, let alone boots.
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
I’m sure the cops planted only the freshest bud there.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: His childhood rabbi let him have it on Rosh HaShana!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/10/stephen-miller-trump-rabbi-neil-comess-daniels
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: EmptyWheel:
Given how we already know how driven Donnie’s (and Vlad’s) minions are driven by money, this makes a lot of sense to me.
I guess we’ll know soon enough.
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I am aware of that.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: He’s not going to avoid the forfeiture by pleading guilty unless he gives Mueller something Mueller wants.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
It is a received belief of journalism that pontificating/editorialising, i.e. what high-ranking editors get to do, is more exalted than reporting, i.e. what lowly reporters have to do.
J R in WV
@raven:
I believe you, but to me the idea of a draft board giving someone a pass, for any reason past being the son of a prominent local businessman, is crazy. Never happened in my locality, never!
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Good point.
Popehat explains all:
Of course!!
;-)
rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
@Frankensteinbeck: Trump’s pardon’s haven’t had anything to do with his own personal feelings towards the person, but rather what he thinks will get his base excited. If Fox or some other RWNJ media figure he listens to starts going on about how Manafort is being railroaded, then he’ll pardon Manafort. If he doesn’t get the sense that some constituency he likes will praise him for pardoning Manafort, then he won’t. Has “Pardon Paul!!” been a major chant at his rallies? No? Poor Paul.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Thanks.
catclub
@ESM:
You can say that, but it is just another norm that is now broken. Trump could pardon everybody in the West wing , plus every employee of Trump tower, and his political support would not change. It might go up.
Parfigliano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mueller cant do anything about state charges. States are seperate soveriegns over which the Feds have no control when it comes to criminal charges
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Release! Release! Release!
JR
@Martin: I don’t 100% percent agree with your analogy — there’s a replacement value to be considered in even “unskilled” labor — but automation is going to kill trucking. Relatedly it will also kill a lot of highway convenience stores and restaurants.
moops
@Schlemazel: I buy it. Mueller is looking for a way to save the GOP from their own lunacy. He likely views Trump and his inner group as a few bad apples among otherwise noble politicians. I’m guessing he is looking for a soft landing on this investigation that doesn’t crater his own Party going into November.
moops
@catclub: deserves a repeat. “Spending your political capital” is just a convention. It only happens if people agree to that norm.