Shouldn’t sit on those… If he gets a pardon and has a whiff of freedom, he’s outta the country within hours.
A one way ticket to Russia.
Which prison system would you prefer to die in, Mr. Manafort?
Womp womp.
Delicious!
Not if he doesn’t immediately get one of his passports back.
I agree - why wait?
“If the right one don’t get ya, then the left one will.”
You’re presuming that he’d be flying out like the rest of us, not just escorted through a back gate at a private airport by russkie handlers.
The pardon has to get filed, and then he’s got to get processed out. Including, for example, the fact that he has to accept the pardon (and thus waive his right to appeal the convictions). It doesn’t take but a few minutes to file the indictment between the issuance and the acceptance of the pardon. And, because accepting the pardon is an admission of guilt… if he does that, he’s boned.
OK, I admit, I don’t really have a strong criminal mind. 
Cyrus Vance Jr, huh. Didn’t he let tRump and his criminal gang off the hook so he could get some sweet hush money, I mean, campaign finance money for himself from tRump’s lawyer, Kasowitz? Am I missing something here? Maybe let someone else with clean hands handle the case…Just sayin.
Any pardon Trump gives Manafort will cause Trump to deeply regret it.
Trump reminds me of a person who loves cars but knows nothing about cars. Something unplanned happens and the driver is screwed. Trump loves him some lawyers but knows only the results of their work.
In this case Trump’s type of acquaintance with the law will cause him a host of problems. Problems in the Court of Public Opinion. Problems with these Prosecutors.
And other problems dealing with Manafort himself.
Is Cyrus Vance Jr. trying to atone for his past legal misjudgments re: Trump and his gang??
I’ve never believed that a pardon was a serious option for Trump. I think he has done a pretty good job of fooling some people that he would offer them pardons in order to get them to provide corrupted testimony and render themselves ineffective as witnesses for trial. Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, and Roger Stone all got tripped up because they thought a pardon was coming. Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Junior still appear to live under the illusion that Trump would pardon them or crush the justice system to protect them (and himself by extension).
They all thought (or think) they were (or are) indispensable but they quickly became (or will become) expendable. Ari Melber pointed this out very well with respect to Flynn in his excellent interview with Andrew McCabe yesterday (2/22). Flynn lied point-blank to FBI investigators and even made an offhand comment indicating that the FBI knew what he and Russian Ambassador Kislyak talked about. Yet, he still lied anyway. Both McCabe and Melber were shocked just talking about it. However, Ari wondered aloud did Flynn have a get out of jail free card in his back pocket? Was it sheer arrogance? As I have written before on Flynn after his disastrous sentencing hearing, I believe one of his critical mistakes was to think that he was too big to fail and that he would be protected. The correction he made post firing was to quickly realize that he had been cheated by Trump, the Russians and their cohorts and decided to fully cooperate.
All that said, the risk of pardons does exist and therefore this is very good due diligence on the part of the state of New York to close out an option that Trump might use if circumstances get a bit more desperate for him.
The enduring question of the mythos of Trump: again and again, he convinces people (cabinet officials, campaign members, a plurality of the voting public) that he cares about them, that he has their back, that if they do the quid they can count on the quo.
Reams and reams of evidence to the contrary, a mountain of proof that Donald Trump is characterologically incapable of loyalty and may not even be able to grok the concept, none of it ever matters. They get taken in anyway.
I think what Trump convinced them of is that they were part of a grand and shady scheme in which they would benefit if they stayed the course. He corrupts people early and then they don’t have much of a choice other than to stay corrupted. People don’t out themselves. The 'fess up after they get caught.
What’s this about trumpp standing in the path of a speeding car barreling towards him which has no brakes?
You’re giving some cartoonists out there ideas… 
