THE BACKCHANNEL
FREE EDITION
NEW!
A FREE email newsletter from Josh Marshall
An email newsletter from Josh Marshall
As you can see ABC News is reporting a “tentative” plea deal between Paul Manafort and the office of special counsel. Assuming this is accurate and moves from tentative to real by tomorrow, I think there’s good reason to expect that this is not what it seems. This isn’t Manafort flipping on Trump. It’s Manafort locking in his pardon.