In the days after President Trump took office, Paul Manafort allegedly guided the administration on how to undermine and thwart the FBI probe into Russia’s election interference in the 2016 campaign, Vox reported Friday.
Citing government records and “interviews with individuals familiar with the matter,” Vox reported that the former Trump campaign chairman was providing this advice while both he and the White House knew Manafort was personally under FBI investigation. Contact between the two parties continued through this year, according to court filings from special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mueller has alleged that Manafort violated his cooperation agreement by lying in their interviews about an array of subjects, including his ongoing contacts with the Trump administration.
Per Vox, the advice that Manafort offered closely aligned with the attack lines that Trump and his backers ended up adopting.
A “person familiar with the advice” told Vox that Manafort instructed the President to aggressively attack the legitimacy of the FBI, the Justice Department and the Steele dossier.
The White House also “adopted” Manafort’s recommendation to allege that Ukraine’s government colluded with the Democratic National Committee to try to boost Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, “a source with direct knowledge of the matter” told Vox.
This close messaging coordination continued even after Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller this September. According to the special counsel, Manafort’s defense attorneys were secretly providing details of the cooperation to the president’s legal team.
Sounds like conspiracy to obstruct justice to me. But then again i live in reality.
So Manafort the master manipulator and political strategist appears to have been advising the Trump WH on several steps to fight and attack the FBI/Mueller investigation. It would appear that the Trumper WH and their allies followed every single recommendation.
This lends further credence to my theory that Mueller knew that Manafort would lie once he signed the plea deal. Mueller was likely aware of all of these efforts on the part of Manafort to undermine the Mueller investigation. I doubt that Mueller would’ve asked Manafort anything Trump related because he would’ve assumed that Trump might’ve reacted against him.
Mueller essentially let Manafort screw himself and probably hooked Trump in on direct evidence of a conspiracy to obstruct justice complete with pardon shopping. Mueller looks to be in a position to put Manafort away for a long while and get Trump on a very clear obstruction charge (one of many, mind you) without the time and expense of a second trial in DC.
No wonder they are getting caught. (They are lucky that merely being stupid isn’t a crime.)
What was that line about dying in prison?
So, Manafort’s attorneys will most likely find themselves charged with something? Cool. No wonder so many of his counsel have stepped aside throughout the past couple of years – a few of them must have not been too accepting of WH demands to cough up some useable info.