How Paul Manafort sold himself to Trump: a 'killer' with no 'Washington baggage' who would work for free, memo shows https://t.co/xKwn4ltk7A
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 8, 2017
Of course a perennially hand-to-mouth con man like Donald Trump would immediately snatch at any offer of assistance from a conveniently-placed, self-advertised “killer” with all the right enemies (like establishment GOP assassin Karl Rove!). It’s the photo which the NYTimes chose to place at the top of its story…
….On Feb. 29, 2016, Mr. Manafort, the former lobbyist and Republican operative who now sits at the nexus of investigations into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, reached out to Mr. Trump with a slick, carefully calibrated offer that appealed to the candidate’s need for professional guidance, thirst for political payback — and parsimony.
The letters and memos provide a telling glimpse into how Mr. Trump invited an enigmatic international fixer, who is currently under investigation by United States intelligence services, a Senate committee and investigators in Ukraine, to the apex of his campaign with a minimum of vetting. The answer? Through family and friends, handshakes and hyperbole.
Mr. Manafort, who has not been accused of any crimes — and who denies any wrongdoing in his political, business and investment dealings — is nonetheless a central figure in the investigation into the interactions of Trump campaign officials with foreign governments. How he got to know Mr. Trump, and how he rose from overseeing the candidate’s operations at the Republican convention to the entire campaign, is very likely to be a focus during coming Senate hearings about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government…
… But who is that aspirational C. Montgomery Burns handing Manafort a suspiciously thick wad of notes? Why, it’s Stephen Miller, currently right-hand mannikin to the much-reviled Steve Bannon!
One might suspect that Jared Kushner, for all his dewy youth, did manage to learn certain lessons about kneecapping the competition from his father, the convicted felon.
Or maybe he’s just an aficionado of GOP tricksterism who’s read up on the Pumpkin Papers…
Effin’ Millenials and their ‘retro’ fads. I could’ve lived a happy life without the current Kremlinology revival.
Mickee
This was a fluff piece that suggested Manafort was too ‘soft’ and not rough and tough enough for the Trumper’s so he left. Flat out lie. He was forced out when his shady Ukranian ties were revealed.
It’s almost like NYT forgot that Manafort recently hired a PR firm to rewrite his history and only needed the willing help of a gullible media to complete the fake story.
Baud
I wonder if the NYT reporters covering Clinton also offered to work for free.
Mike J
Nazi Richard Spencer ran away form his rally yesterday because he was going to get beaten again. Jump in a cab driven by a man from India. Could not keep his mouth shut, got kicked out of the cab.
https://antifascistnews.net/2017/04/09/richard-spencer-just-got-his-ass-kicked-and-glitter-bombed-videos/
bystander
Don’t get me started on the Times. I don’t regret canceling my subscription in the least.
p.a.
a lie goes halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on…
and no one resigns, the only firings are to insulate the guilty from the evidence…
our failed media? more like our failing democracy. not done yet, but we’re in the ICU.
bystander
@Mike J: That looks like some fringe violence that could turn a lot uglier. Kinda scary.
Yarrow
Needs the word “yet” inserted. Not yet been accused of any crimes. He will be.
NotMax
Manafort lives but a short elevator ride below Melania. Does anyone really believe he still doesn’t have his hand in?
efgoldman
@NotMax:
Or maybe not his hand?
Gin & Tonic
As I have been pointing out for over a year now, Paul Fucking Manafort is and always has been a bloodsucking mercenary with no loyalty to anyone on Earth except Paul Fucking Manafort. Given the right evidence and the right deal he will sell out his mother without blinking.
bystander
@efgoldman: Surely not a man as honorable as Manafort.
And when Bannon calls Jared a “cuck,” who is it that Bannon is accusing of having sex with Ivanka? Or does he not know the meaning of cuckold and thinks it’s a veiled way of smearing Jared with another four-letter anti-Semitic slur?
Patricia Kayden
@Mickee: As Schrodinger’s Cat always reminds us, the NYT is awful. Seems like whenever they criticize Trump, they immediately follow up with an article soft-pedaling him and/or his supporters.
MomSense
Words cannot adequately express how disgusted and furious I am about this whole mess we find ourselves in.
Lyrebird
Anne Laurie, I hope you read this comment… ‘cos all I am saying is that even though I am not commenting much right now, I am SO SO SO grateful you are writing and that you are here in the handbasket with the rest of us. Thank you (and John & other FPers too) for what you do.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden:
Or as Baud reminds us, every time the NYT is mentioned, “the NYT is garbage”.
Mike J
@bystander: In the 80s when the right were saying gay people should be locked up to prevent the spread of AIDS, decent people tut-tutted. Now there are literally Nazis in the street saying Jews should be rounded up and gassed.
Perhaps had we been a little more emphatic in our previous disagreement the bounds of acceptable public discourse would not have moved so far.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@bystander: A black guy (likely “mulatto”), so probably Obama.
efgoldman
@Gin & Tonic:
Campaign consultants never have totally clean hands, but Manafort and his buddies are covered ears to toenails in many, many layers of mud.
And not the nice clean kind they use on baseballs, either.
efgoldman
@Mike J:
Perhaps, instead of blaming our reactions. we should blame the assholes.
hovercraft
@Mickee:
No they know how the game is played. It’s like the “spin room” that’s set up in the presidential debate venues. The media go in there and interview spinners, and then turn around to “report” to us from said “spin room”. This is the game they play, they’re in on the con, it’s the readers who are getting played. Assholes.
NY Times is garbage, H/T Baud
debbie
@Mike J:
What a wuss. The photos don’t show it, but I’m hoping the glitter bombing was literal.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike J: It’s hard out there on a Bigot. Sad.
debbie
@bystander:
And you think that if the situation was reversed, Spencer’s followers would have treated a liberal in a gentlemanly manner?
sukabi
@Mickee: thank you. In all the politeness of Mr. Manafort and Mr. Trump the NYT is whitewashing the facts out of the narrative. Manafort left because his Russian and other connections were getting too obvious.
Patricia Kayden
@GrandJury:
That’s an odd comment. What’s wrong with “hating on these people”? Why shouldn’t Neo-Nazis be hated on? From what I know about Neo-Nazis, they foment violence so the fact that violence targets them isn’t something I’ll lose sleep about. I’ll save my sympathy for victims of racism/Islamophobia, many of which surfaced after Trump’s win.
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I dunno — I really like their comics page.
Ruckus
@hovercraft:
Actually the media is also getting played. It’s just that they don’t give a damn that they are. The media is not about the truth. They never have been. They are about their point of view, which is, give us money and we’ll give you ink or pixels, arranged in some way that we hope makes you give us more money. Of course there are always a few reporters that have actual standards about what they write, but like all of us they need to eat and they’d like to be comfortable. Being honorable is a costly way to live. More costly for some of us than others.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
I see what you did there.
raven
Serious drama at Augusta!
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
@bystander:
It’s a bit worse than that. Bannon is implying that Jared stands by while someone else has fun with Jared’s wife. Given who has openly fawned over Ivanka, who do you think that is?
sukabi
@raven: unless there’s a yuuuuge alligator on the course there’s no excitement.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: How much daylight is left?
raven
@Gin & Tonic: 30 minutes. I’m sitting on the deck and the sun is just at the top of the trees.
efgoldman
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini:
Let’s you and him fight!
Gvg
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini: actually they are using cuck/ cuckold in a political sense and saying someone is being fooled and used by it’s implied the political professional class. They think they are so cynical and wise but they are actually fools who have been taught a certain useful disbelief. They think they are wise to the con but can’t even evaluate evidence anymore. They also reflexively hate and distrust “Washington”. Trump benefited by them and they thought they were finally getting a champion but now they are falling away. They are falling into distrusting him and his advisors who now are Washington and the opinion leaders of their type aren’t set up to make money off of being in power, only on attacking. They don’t really have an all agreed on agenda either except being against various enemies. Yelling and being rude, cutting off money to help someone, that’s all there is. No final solution, too much work and then who would they complain about? They do like crude offensive statements which is why cuck is their latest fad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I really hope Uday saw this reply (the context is French celebrities vowing to leave France if Marine LePen wins)
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman:
Manafort has never had even slightly clean hands. He cut his teeth working for Jonas Savimbi and Ferdinand Marcos, and developed the techniques of fomenting ethnic/linguistic division that he later employed for the gangster Yanukovych in Ukraine. Describing him as a “campaign consultant” is a disservice to campaign consultants. He is a sociopath.
zach
@Mickee:
To be fair, that was the story in August 2016 as well… Trumpers leaked that Manafort was too low-energy and the Ukraine/Russia stuff was the second reason.
Of course, it was a lie then as well. Trump’s impulsive but he’s not an idiot. Manafort got Bob Dole to lead the charge of making Trump palatable to the old-guard GOP. Manafort used his connections to get Franklin Graham and the rest of the religious right to fall in line behind a serial adulterer who obviously doesn’t actually care about abortion at all. Manafort saved Trump’s campaign and did more to help him win than all the Russian propaganda combined did to hurt Clinton.
hovercraft
@Ruckus:
I’ll agree that they are being used, but disagree that they are unwitting dupes, unlike the people who are reading this drivel. As you say they aren’t interested in the truth, they are interested in access, and page views.
japa21
Interesting. Trump’s fantastic strike against Syria took place on Thursday. This was supposed to make him more popular. Yet Gallup’s 3 day rolling polling, which would include 2 days post Syria strike shows absolutely no change. My guess is that while it may have been a boost in some areas, it cost him some of his alt-right support.
danielx
@Patricia Kayden:
And especially Illinois Nazis.
zhena gogolia
@japa21:
I pray that that is true if only because it might slow his trigger finger.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@zach:
Assumes facts never in evidence
John Revolta
Effin’ Millenials and their ‘retro’ fads.
And while we’re on the subject: The Rat Pack were a bunch of assholes fifty years ago, and they’re a bunch of assholes today. Being dead has improved them a little, but not enough to really matter.
That is all.
Mike in NC
Being willing to work for free seems to have great appeal to a cheap prick like Trump. Much more important than being competent, to judge from the quality of his inner circle.
Yarrow
@raven: That was a fantastic end to The Masters.
Lurking Canadian
@japa21: Considering the way he’s been trending lately, staying the same IS a boost in the polls.
J R in WV
Always glad to see a fascist booed down and chased away like that. Glitter-bombed is also appropriate.
I was a total pacifist for many years, but I have come to believe that some people are unreachable by peaceful means, and have no moral center reachable by civil disobedience. Fascists should just be put in their place, you pick that place.
Punched, chased away, cab driver puts him out, glitter bombed, perfect!! He’s a coward who’s most fervent desire is to harm a great many other people, which will make him feel powerful and strong.
raven
@Yarrow: Yup!
Yarrow
@raven: The course looked a bit sad without the azaleas blooming. It’s a beautiful course either way, but it’s stunning with the azaleas in full bloom.
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: They should be boycotted. Don’t give them subscription money or clicks. Their political coverage of the last election was beyond the pale. They helped elected T. The know where his NYC skeletons are buried, they are the hometown newspaper. Yet it was WashPost that broke most of the T stories. They had but one goal to take down HRC. They succeeded in their jihad against Hillary.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lurking Canadian: Heh, probably true
Vox has a video explainer of the civil war in Syria that has over 11 million views. When you consider the number of people who (probably) know what Vox is, that suggests a pretty high level of interest and engagement, and probably not people eager to rubber stamp another invasion in the region, one that is from my very much non-experts point of view magnitudes more complicated and dangerous that Iraq
schrodingers_cat
@japa21: The citizenry is less idiotic than the media tublets.
HinTN
@Yarrow: Wish Sergio had made the putt on 18 the first time, but that second shot at it was sublime. I knocked the lampshade off with my hoorah!
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Fuck the fucking New York Times. They are worse than garbage.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense:
Trying to out do Baud? No one can out do Baud!
Ian
Jesus f*ing Christ!! What the hell???
Steve in the ATL
@HinTN: they both had their chances, which made it a pretty cool ending. I’m happy for Sergio, finally getting his major.
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
I hate to be lookist, but Manafort has a very strange head. It looks like a Lego head, with the features painted on.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I would never dream of outdoing Baud! I’m practically a Baud groupie!
MomSense
@Ian:
Wait what?
SFAW
@MomSense:
You really need to get out more.
MomSense
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian:
Ever notice all the fucking Republicans have playmobil/lego hair? Looks like you could just pop it off and snap a combover in another color.
geg6
@MomSense:
Completely agree. Not fit to wipe shit off my ass. Hell, not fit to wipe shit off my dogs’ asses.
MomSense
@SFAW:
Let’s be honest, needing to get out more (with non canine/ feline beings) is precisely what all of us BJers have in common.
geg6
@MomSense:
True. Saddest jackals ever.
MomSense
@geg6:
As my grandma used to say “the more I see of people, the better I like dogs”
lollipopguild
@MomSense: I really like Baud. But to grope him? NO. Not unless it pays well.
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense:
But…but…her emails!
Millard Filmore
@J R in WV:
As a freshman in high school I thought about being a pacifist. Then I read a book called “Treblinka”.
Jeffro
Still trying to figure out who flips first (now that we know Flynn’s testimony is worth crap) and then who gets indicted first.
IC must be waiting for the early summer to roll around – that’s when all the big releases hit, right? Fourth of July weekend at the latest? Wasn’t it some W-related douche who said “You don’t roll out new products in August”? THE REPUBLIC CAN’T WAIT ‘TIL AFTER LABOR DAY, IC!!
MomSense
@lollipopguild:
Ha!!
Ian
@MomSense:
http://billmoyers.com/story/truth-lies-democracy-journalism-age-trump/
Ruckus
@hovercraft:
I didn’t mean to imply that they were unwilling dupes. As I said they don’t give a shit that they are being used. It’s easier and far cheaper to be used than to do actual work and so long as they make money they are good to go.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeffro: Nixon resigned in August.
Just sayin’.
Timurid
@Jeffro:
What is supposed to be wrong with Flynn as a witness?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mike J:
WTF? I have conservative friends who went to Berkley during the anti-war riots in the 60’s and swore up and down it was really being pushed by guys they knew who had crew cuts. How much of the Purity Poney Hard Left is really the Hard Right?
Ruckus
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
That assumes facts that are blatantly false. Drumpf is a fucking idiot. Maybe not in the IQ sense but in the real world, he is. If Monty Python was still doing skits he wouldn’t even or ever be in contention for Upper Class Twit of the Year.
MomSense
@Ian
I feel sick.
MomSense
@Villago Delenda Est:
Please FSM, make it so.
efgoldman
@Timurid:
Pure speculation, but it appears that the investigators already have enough on whoever Flynn can implicate that they don’t need his immunized testimony. He needs to be able to give them someone they don’t already have clear in their sights.
ETA: It’s also possible that someone else (Manafort? Stone?) has given the prosecutors what they need without going public about it. Again, pure speculation.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
I looked into being a conscientious objector 50 yrs ago instead of being drafted or enlisting and decided that there were times that pacifism just wasn’t enough in this world, no matter how positive and good it might be. Because as you state there are just some people who think that hurting others, especially those than can not defend themselves is their right. And it isn’t.
It’s a theoretical lifestyle that is wonderful but like so many other absolute ideals, it doesn’t fit well into many parts of human life, because so many hold truly opposite views.
MomSense
@efgoldman:
They were talking to known foreign agents. We have transcripts. Hubris is a helluva drug. Unless they can implicate the principals, they are not going to get deals.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: True. And since the election, they’re still pumping up Trump and his supporters with puff pieces.
efgoldman
@MomSense:
If they buy one-way tickets to Rootie Putooties Paradise, I wonder if the DOJ will let them go.
Mary G
I’m all for women getting equality in the workplace, but both Maggie Haberman and Liz Spayd are embarrassing. They are on the side of power and are condescending as shit if you are a liberal.
Timurid
@efgoldman:
I sure hope that’s true.
If Flynn’s testimony is just a luxury for them now, they must be close to a big score…
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: I hung out with some girlfriends yesterday. This evening, joined another fambly for grilled chicken and ribs outdoors before the weather becomes ratty again. I feel like I am done socializing for weeks now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary G: Isn’t Haberman the journalist with whom Tom Levenson was having a dialogue about journalistic standards?
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: I wouldn’t know, I haven’t clicked on NYT, no has subscription since last November. Their T puff piece about immigration (which totally contradicted the actual speech he gave) was what did it for me. I think they went back and changed that article twice.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@MomSense: That was an excerpt from a parody. Hard to tell the difference nowadays, I know.
Davebo
So I take a long weekend away from the news and find we are now at war with Syria. Am I missing something? Because that seems like a pretty big deal.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Heh. I walked in the woods for a couple hours with the dog and emerged covered in mud. I had to take an alternate route home (because I stepped in water up to my knees) and ended up in a field next to a nursing home. A couple of residents were taking a sunbath outside so I stopped so they could pet the dog. That was enough people for one day.
SFAW
@MomSense:
You’re not supposed to “say” that aloud, you know.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: @SFAW: I was out most of the day.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
You need to get a dog.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: I am out too much to have a dog. Wouldn’t be fair to the wee beastie to be cooped up alone all day.
ETA: I do have a plant though.
Yarrow
@Steve in the ATL: Yeah, it was great. Sergio has the best smile and was so, so happy and excited to finally win his first major. And all the players seem to love him, so they were excited for him too. It was a great ending.
efgoldman
@Mary G:
Nothing to do with being women; everything to do with who pays them every two weeks.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
So get two dogs. Problem solved!
Just for your glaucoma, right?
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
You have a plant; I am a plant. We’re just alike.
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
I like the way you think.
Steve in the ATL
@MomSense: thank you!
Had a lawyer friend years ago who wanted a pet but was at the office too much for a dog so he got a cat. No problem.
Then he got a second cat because he didn’t want the first cat to be lonely and bored. Ok, that makes sense.
Then his neighbor moved away and dumped another cat on him, so he became a young single guy with three cats. IIRC, he hasn’t had sex since.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I am a rock; I am an island. And the plant is a philodendron.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I am suspicious of your advice.
Aleta
Here’s a pet.
https://mobile.twitter.com/rabihalameddine/status/851084516168876032/photo/1
efgoldman
@Aleta: VERMIN
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ok, you are smarter than I thought.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
I think it’s from a parody.
MomSense
@Aleta:
Ha!! I’m sure the kid deserved it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I want to live alone in the desert
I want to be like Georgia O’Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course it is.
mouse tolliver
China mocks Trump missile strike after Xi leaves US: ‘A weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles’
But how can this be? Our warmongering media seemed convinced that the world would be impressed by our new strongman overlord.
schrodingers_cat
@efgoldman: Russian plant?
Aleta
@efgoldman: If it didn’t have a meaning, Vermin could be a first name.
Vermin Kushner.
Vermina Trump.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And it’s name is Plant.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: its, damn it, its.
StringOnAStick
Two days of biking, today mountain biking to get ready to bike the White Rim trail in Canyonlands starting 5 days from now. Starting to feel my age though, these sub 40 friends kicked my butt today.
Ian
@zhena gogolia:
I sure f*ing hope so.
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
Hmmm. Both my paternal grandparents immigrate from Russia.
Of course, the Russians didn’t count Jews as Russians, so….
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: So you had cover. I see how it works.