President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort is in talks with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office about a potential plea deal, The Washington Post reported.
Bloomberg News reported Friday that Manafort was considering pleading guilty to some of the charges he’ll face in a Washington, D.C. court later this month in order to avoid the second trial.
According to two people with knowledge of the discussion who spoke to the Post, the discussions between Manafort and prosecutors is still preliminary, and it’s very possible that the talks could not produce a plea agreement. It is unclear if cooperating with prosecutors would be part of any agreement.
The reports come just weeks after Trump praised Manafort in a tweet, calling him a “brave man!” for refusing to “break” or “make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.'”
Manafort was found guilty of eight counts of bank and tax fraud crimes in a Virginia court and the jury was deadlocked on 10 other counts. In the D.C. court, Manafort will face money laundering, witness tampering and failure to disclose foreign lobbying charges.
Oh, please be true!!!
There are two potential storylines in the reporting. One is pleading guilty to avoid a trial, the other is cooperating with prosecutors to reduce his sentence, or ‘flipping.’ Let’s hope the second is in play.
So Paul do you want to spend the rest of your life in jail or just half of the rest of your life in jail?
Manafort should know that Trump doesn’t pay his debts, so a deal along the lines of “if you stay quiet, you’ll get a pardon” is not realistic, because it would involve trusting Trump. As long as Manafort is not flipping, Trump has no reason to pardon him - Trump is getting what he wants, and there is no upside for Trump to pardon Manafort. Manafort may be trying to figure out a way to leverage his position to get a pardon up front. Not sure how that will work, though.
Who is the Best Grifter Trump or Manafort?