I’m not sure what constitutes treason, but aren’t some of these a-holes guilty of the real thing? Any lawyers out there with input?
“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
I’m very confident that just about every top-level nonfiction writer will want to take a crack at this. The talent is absolutely out there. The New Yorker alone has a number of people who’d do fantastic job.
Remarkably the alleged false statement was made by Gates to the Special Counsel’s Office and the FBI on Feb. 1,…That suggests Gates
lied in the course of plea negotiations. His lawyers moved to withdraw from the case the same day.
This seems to answer the question several of us speculated on for several days over several comment sections.
Manafort and Gates should have been caught and jailed for their crimes 10 years ago.
Yeah, that’s sort of the galling part. Apparently nothing would’ve happened to them if they hadn’t happened to have ended up in the bulls-eye of the special counsel. The unfortunate reality is that white collar crime is really hard and time-consuming to prosecute and prove (and the defendants actually can afford to vigorously defend themselves).
May not have been plea negotiations. Possibly a a stupid “let me talk to them and I can clear all this up!” Interview. . Preceded by his lawyers saying, “look, our client says x and I believe him.”
Which would have been when he was represented by the lawyers who quit, now, wouldn’t it?
Either way besides driving off his lawyer’s, I’d bet the deal Mueller was willing to give got abruptly worse. And that made Gates stubborn and that led to the additional charges and forfeiture counts.
Edit. This was stupid. 2/1/18? Of course it was plea negotiations. And that’s the day his lawyers withdrew, meaning the Feds probably handed him his memo right after he lied and it was a surprise to them. They hooked him up with new counsel and bailed.
Yes that second count sure does help explain those disappearing lawyers:
“Remarkably the alleged false statement was made by Gates to the Special Counsel’s Office and the FBI on Feb. 1, months after the original indictment was issued, according to the information. That suggests Gates lied in the course of plea negotiations. His lawyers moved to withdraw from the case the same day.”
