Seems a bit high to me. I think I will look into the other shops.
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That’s a good question. A pardon wouldn’t nullify any civil financial liability (he’d still owe $16 million to Calk’s bank), but I don’t know whether it would wipe out his federal tax obligations. Probably not, but how does the government prosecute to collect?
If he had been pardoned prior to the indictments and trial, some or all of the seizures and forfeitures would not have happened, but that is moot for Manafort (but not for Cohen).
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Manafort won’t be pardoned. His sentence will be commuted to time served. He will take the money from some anonymous shell company shtigobbon and after a reasonable time in the wilderness will be rehabilitated and rise like a phoenix on Faux News as a victim of liberal persecution. aka pull an Ollie North.
Or go live with Ken Lay in Fiji.
? is my cynicism showing?
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Good question, messy answer.
Within the space of one opinion, the Supreme Court managed to say all this:
A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender, and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that, in the eye of the law, the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.
There is only this limitation to its operation: it does not restore offices forfeited or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment.
That was in 1866.
In a couple of decisions shortly afterwards, the Supreme Court came down on both sides of the issue, according to which part of the government controlled the forfeited money at the time of the decision (this distinction being a direct consequence of the “vested in others” language that’s bolded above).
More recent opinions in Federal court have been … mixed. What’s safe to say is that the facts of each case can make a real difference.
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Two great minds. Loved these people.
Smart lady. Better move fast, grab as many assets as quickly as possible.
But how is it that smart accomplished people get so stupid? What is it about risking everything to be a member of Trump’s Club? And we’re not just talking about banging the sec’y.
You left out Nicole who today gave us the old chestnut “failed presidential candidate” HRC
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When the OJ jury came back after less than three hours, a criminal defense partner in my firm told me not to bother going to the break room to watch because it would certainly be an acquittal and it would probably hurt too much to see it unfold in real time. He told me that if a jury decides serious criminal charges that quickly it is almost always in the defendant’s favor, because most juries take much longer to convict out of concern that they don’t want to punish someone without double and triple checking evidence and testimony. So, basically, they could still acquit or convict here but it’s obvious they didn’t accept the facial explanation put forth by the defense, that it was all Rick Gates’ fault.
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UPDATE
There was a knock on the door from the jury room into the courtroom, Tierney Sneed reports.
Do me a favor
Open the Door
And let 'em in
Oooh yeah, let 'em in…
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I think most white collar defendants eventually see the light, perhaps after long discussions with their wife and/or adult children. However, Manafort’s conduct was blindingly brazen. His income tax evasion was blatant, and when he ran out of money he decided to live on LOANS – who does that? And then, he lied constantly to get the loans, and in my view, eventually conspired with the head cheese at the bank to overlook the lies and deception that others at the bank began suspecting, in order to reward or at least offer to reward head cheese, flattering his ego and deceiving him about his own influence. Oh yeah, Congress would approve some random bank executive to be Secretary of the Army. WTF? When I think about defendants I have known who rolled the dice and went to trial for conduct that was pretty blatant, you see this same pattern of believing that they can talk their way out of it by assigning other people blame, and besides, everyone knows that wealthy people like themselves are not what we mean when we utter the word “criminal.”
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"Apparently there is a new note from the jury.
More soon …"
I’m calling it: there’s a Trumpbot in there refusing to find him guilty of anything. Get ready to enjoy a right-wing media gloat-fest when the jury turns up hung and a mistrial is declared.
This, folks, is how it works for the wealthy and connected. You and I walk into the bank and face scrutiny through demands for paperwork and credit checks and a full accounting of all past finances. Manafort has lunch and gives some off-the-cuff numbers and is all “a million here or there, what’s the difference?” and tells the banker to do some creative underwriting.
Two worlds.
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Thank you Mr. Trump (and others his ilk) for patriating so much (presumably ill-gotten) foreign wealth that bolstered NYC’s tax revenues and trickled down to so many service industries.
So my question is was it wrong to fleece foreign oligarchs in this manner? I mean, if they didn’t stash their dirty wealth in NYC real estate, it would have gone somewhere else.
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A pardon for the Federal crime of tax evasion would not erase his tax liability to the IRS, but without the threat of prosecution, good luck collecting. The IRS could seize assets if they find any.
Amen…while many of us would like to see any member of Trump’s crime syndicate prosecuted just on principle, what’s startling is how freely white collar criminals thumb their collective nose at the law and get away with it. As big a fan I am of the Obama Admin, I think it was a moral failure to not at least try to prosecute some folks associated with the Great Recession. Iceland did it and put a bunch of bankers in jail.
The really appalling part, though, is how much these thieves can get away with legally. Matt Yglesias at Vox has written several times about how much bad behavior is not technically a crime. We need systemic changes, which of course Republicans fight tooth and nail.
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He’s Fer-Calk-a fer sure…
Let me sum up the Manafort defense: No one called me a crook before the prosecutor did, so I must be innocent.
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You know how some (many) of us look to folks like you with the experience and knowledge to sort this stuff out for us? This is enough to make me cry, because I know you know what these signs probably mean. Damn.
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From Calk to Cuck in record time!
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