Organized crime. We believe.
Well now Rick, you think about that. Basically he brilliantly consulted himself into jail for a hundred million years with his brilliance.
"Manafort, Gates said, was probably the āmost politically brilliant strategist Iāve ever worked with.ā "
And you have worked with exactly how many strageists, Mr. Gates?
What is Ellisā game here?
Thatās it, butter him up before chopping off his legs in a single swing.
Thatās my beef.
These genetically-superior, captains of American industry, titans of the world, truly in the realm of the godsā¦ are so freaking stupid.
Itās my understanding that Cypriot bank accounts are the financial equivalent of putting on a burglarās mask and walking around on tiptoe with a window jimmy in your hand. It sends a clear message and the message isnāt good.
lolā¦ you DO get around!
So, Manifort, Trump, and the entire āfamilyā will fight John Q. Public tooth-and-nail over every last thingā¦ but heyā¦ this Ukrainian businessman suggests Bank of WhoGivesAShit in Cyprus, and Manifort walks right over there???
Manafort [is] āone of the most politically brilliant strategists Iāve ever worked with.ā
Thatās for sure. Without Manafort there wouldnāt be a President Trump.
āGates Begins Testimony Against āBrilliantā Ex-Boss Manafort.ā
Well, there goes Gatesā credibilityā¦
Please God, let Wilbur Ross"s name come up in the context of banking in Cyprus
.
Manifort is up to his keister in crime, and Trump is way, way, way worse.
Just spitballinā here, but that bank in Cyprus ā Iām gonna guess it couldnāt possibly have been this one?
Trumpās commerce secretary oversaw Russia deal while at Bank of Cyprus
āā¦scolded prosecutors for certain topics of inquiryā
Sorry but the more I read about this trial, the more Ellis comes across as a partisan asshole.
Gates also mentioned one of recent employers, President Donald Trump, though he did not use his name.
āI worked for one of the presidential candidates most recently,ā Gates said while providing biographical details to the courtroom.
This sounds similar to the footnoting of Trumpās campaign in Carter Pageās FISA warrant application. Will Devin Nunes now issue a memo complaining about this egregious lack of transparency?
Youāve got to have a 6th sense about who you canāt say ānoā to-
Possibly, itās to make any verdict/sentence potentially against PManafart beyond any reasonable āoverturnā decision by one of the repugnican hack-judges further up the appeal process chain?
His guy is in the White House, and Putinās multi-pronged grab for Ukraine proceeds. Itās hard to argue with results.
Working for evil people isnāt even the thing thatās going to bring Manafort down. Itās the fiscal shenanigans he got up to at home. If heād been honest about his backers and finances (Occupation: Chairman of the Joint Henchmen of Staff), and been willing to ātighten his beltā (as his party moralistically prattles on about when they occasionally skim too much from the GDP) in these times which were predictably lean, heād be fine.
ETA: This is actually the part that I find scary. It turns out that being an evil bastard isnāt against the law, nor is supporting evil bastards or preventing the downfall of evil bastards. The only real purchase the forces of justice have is that evil bastards often cut corners for the sake of expedience, and sometimes there is enough evidence of it to put them on trial.
Al Capone was put away for tax evasion. In a civilized society, he would have been put away for ordering the deaths of his competitors and pursuers, for bribing law enforcement, and for operating myriad protection rackets and the like.
Our laws arenāt toothless. But the powerful have removed all the canines because that would interfere with their perennial plans to entrench their power. Itās not their fault that sometimes they get caught up with the rest of us on our way to be ground down by the molars in the back.
I understand the prosecution intends to call Mayor McCheese and Grimace as material witnesses to that.