Discussion: New Hints That Mueller's Manafort Probe Is Going Beyond Ukraine Charges

Does it tell us when he first knew that the Russians were offering illegal help?

1 Like

Does anyone else believe the change in the GOP Party Platform at the Republican Convention that softened US position Ukraine was an orchestrated signal by Manafort to his handlers? Everything I remember about that event contemporaneously was odd: Trump’s people restricted access to the meeting that led to the change, etc. I’ve always thought that was a sign of conspiracy hiding in plain sight.

32 Likes

I am convinced.

I like your summary.

14 Likes

Yes, I thought it was odd at the time, and even in hindsight knowing the Ukranian influence on certain principals it is still odd. Everyone knows party platforms are largely meaningless. I thought maybe ukranian interests naive about american election procedures made that happen without understanding its irrelevancy.

9 Likes

The email chain pretty clearly states that the Russian Government had material that would be helpful to Trump and that their expressed goal was to help Trump and hurt HRC. To that, Junior said ‘if it’s what you say, I love it!’. That’s offer and acceptance imho. I really don’t know how much more plain it could be.

What the Trumpers are relying on is that the meeting itself focused on the Magnitsky Act (Russia’s ask) and not the info that the Russians had to give. The fact is that the Russians did hand over material that they believed would hurt HRC. Junior and Manafort didn’t think it would do the job. That tells me they were looking for a specific kind of ‘dirt’. To me that’s damning.

18 Likes

All orchestrated by Donald, the boy genius who oddly knows nothing at all about the work of those people closest to his business and affairs.

Believe that?

3 Likes

Still does not reach the question of his knowing what was illegal.

(Not arguing here that’s a defense.)

1 Like

You don’t need to know that getting campaign help from a foreign source is illegal to be guilty of that crime. You just have to know that you want that help and then take an act to get it. But I would say that Junior knew the act was potentially illegal on the day he accepted the meeting because the Trump Team did keep it secret and repeated the process again with respect to the Emiratis and Saudis. His thinking was that if he kept it secret he wouldn’t be caught. Why does anyone have to fear being caught for a legal act? Junior took tons of meetings with donors that were more or less known to the public. He kept these types of meetings secret and lied about it.

28 Likes

I am assuming you are talking about mens rea. He didn’t have to know something was illegal - ignorance of the law is not a defense. He has to have wanted to do what he did, and his ignorance about it is not a factor.

9 Likes

But if you were planning some entirely legal attack on an opposing campaign, would you keep your plan secret or publish it in the NYT?

2 Likes

If it were legal, you wouldn’t care if the press were around or not. You wouldn’t care to keep things secret. Goldstone said the meeting was ‘highly confidential’ as it involved information from the Russian government. Trump and Junior knew what that meant.

14 Likes

Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y’all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive

Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your window
Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your door
Can’t you hear me knockin’ down your dirty street, yeah

You’d reveal your election tactics to the opposing party? I think perhaps not.

2 Likes

Thanks Tena. I think I’m starting to come down from the brown acid of 2016. When I compare the US today to the US of the eighties and nineties—crime is a fraction of what it was in the 70’s, violent crime is way down( I remember the pharmacist in my neighborhood in Mass. during the 70’s and 80’s-long before our current opioid crisis-had been shot 5 or 6 times and stabbed many times during robberies), sexual misconduct in the work place is way down, our air quality is better, our libraries are better, lots of organic food choices, the numbers of religious true believers is way down, and racism is way better than it was both institutionalized as well as the number of bigots walking around. In the late 80s and early 90s I was in the Air Force and stationed in Texas with 4 or 5 guys from Vidor and Beaumont and none of them were racist or bigoted and yet the stories they told me about their parents were scary racist. In every unit I was in there was always one or two out of twenty that were bigots but some of the other 19 or 18 were not only not racist but had married and/or had kids with someone of another ethnicity than their own. And we are all living longer and healthier than ever before regardless of class or economic status. The vote was changed. IMO.

17 Likes

Probably not, but you probably wouldn’t keep lying about it and then when you’re caught keep either changing your cover story or dribbling out details hoping people give up on the trial. Like Chris Hayes says about once a night, “But they keep acting like they’re guilty!”

7 Likes

Liked x gazillions.

Yeah they were changed. It’s too obvious as far as I’m concerned. Those razor thin margins he got in just the right states. Yeah.

8 Likes

They certainly know by now that the Russians were offering illegal help.

I was just curious as to whether people think enough of Junior’s legal acumen to believe he knew at the time that the offered help was illegal.

And I can’t understand why you think that matters.

5 Likes

Maybe. Even if actual votes were not altered, it’s now certain that the hackers were able to reach registration records and definitely had the ability to alter those. That would be enough to turn people away at the polls, and there were hundreds of thousands of people turned away at the polls, more than enough to turn the tide in the 3 suspicious states.

I’m always very interested in first-hand stories of what happened on election day, who was shocked by being turned away from the place they had voted for years, and how local election officials take pride in doing their best to protect the process. I’ve been a poll monitor for several elections and seen their dedication.

I still suspect it is much easier to hide altering the voter registration records than hacking voting results. Also, the numbers of people turned away seem inordinately high. I would love to see a resolution to this.

19 Likes

And Didn’t the fbi warn the campaigns that the Russians would make overtures, and that if they did, the campaigns should notify the FBI?

17 Likes