Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Let there be snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Russiagate Crime Cartel Open Thread: Really, Mr. Manafort?

Russiagate Crime Cartel Open Thread: Really, Mr. Manafort?

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124Comments

  2. 2.

    NCSteve

    Unnoticed thus far, it appears Ellis entered an order last night reiterating his order to move Manafort to the Alexandria Detention Center. My favorite part was this:

    However, defense counsel has not identified any general or specific threat to defendant’s safety at the Alexandria Detention Center. They have not done so, because the professionals at the Alexandria Detention Center are very familiar with housing high-profile defendants including foreign and domestic terrorists, spies and traitors.

    drive.google.com/file/d/1i8jdTTlJ-i56nB5YYI8pHU_Ue1Xj0Ggr/view

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    Manafort has a personnel phone in his unit.

    Makes sense. The best place to recruit people for your nefarious schemes is to be vetted through prison HR.

  4. 4.

    Kay

    It’s really true that this whole administration could have been avoided if we had proper white collar crime prosecutions, instead of our current lax “coddle the lawbreakers” approach, including Donald Trump and his entire family.

    It’s particularly egregious since we’re a country who absolutely hammer people who aren’t rich and powerful

    Let’s vow to crack down on white collar crime. Redirect criminal justice resources there. The vast majority of the public would love it, and it’s the right thing to do.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    Unsurprising. In fact, everyone was probably expecting this. Manafort is incorrigible, desperate, and all but certainly guilty.

  6. 6.

    Mike J

    I would like to disagree with Amee Vanderpool. Karma doesn’t exist. The universe does not care about justice. Justice exists when we make it exist. We have to work to make sure these motherfuckers get what they deserve.

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Here’s a link to Bobby Three-Sticks’ official opposition to Manafort’s motion to continue:

    assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4594533/7-11-18-US-Oppo-Manafort-Motion-to-Continue.pdf

    (Sorry about the naked link; its increasingly difficult to embed links on the phone.)

    If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, this is the best part:

    Specifically, contrary to Manafort’s assertions about his jail conditions, Manafort is in a private unit in which he can review materials and prepare for trial.3 Moreover, he is not confined to a cell. Between the hours of 8:30am to 10:00pm, Manafort has access to a separate workroom at the jail to meet with his attorneys and legal team. Visitor logs from the prison indicate that each week Manafort has had multiple visits with his legal team.

    Manafort also has a personal telephone in his unit, which he can use over twelve hours a day to speak with his attorneys.

    According to prison telephone logs, in the last three weeks Manafort has had over 100 phone calls with his attorneys, and another 200 calls with other persons. Those telephone logs indicate Manafort has spoken to his attorneys every day, and often multiple times a day. Manafort also possesses a personal laptop that he is permitted to use in his unit to review materials and prepare for trial. The jail has made extra accommodations for Manafort’s use of the laptop, including providing him an extension cord to ensure the laptop can be used in his unit and not just in the separate workroom. [Footnotes omitted.]

    Unless it’s this nice footnote:

    Among the unique privileges Manafort enjoys at the jail are a private, self-contained living unit, which is larger than other inmates’ units, his own bathroom and shower facility, his own personal telephone, and his own workspace to prepare for trial. Manafort is also not required to wear a prison uniform. On the monitored prison phone calls, Manafort has mentioned that he is being treated like a “VIP.”

  13. 13.

    Yarrow

    @Kay:

    Let’s vow to crack down on white collar crime. Redirect criminal justice resources there. The vast majority of the public would love it, and it’s the right thing to do.

    Agreed. We need to get tough on white collar crime. It’s a danger to our society. We need some equivalent of community watch programs to keep an eye out for white collar criminals.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    If he’s able to make so many fucking phone calls, I don’t know why he’s demanded to be moved to a facility closer to his attorneys.

  16. 16.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    It’s really true that this whole administration could have been avoided if we had proper white collar crime prosecutions, instead of our current lax “coddle the lawbreakers” approach, including Donald Trump and his entire family.

    First you have to change the law to make convicting white collar crime easier.

    Then you have to get better jurors.

    Because as I’ve flogged time and again, White Collar Crimes are not easy to get convictions on. Murders are fucking simple by comparison.

  17. 17.

    Thoughtful David

    @NotMax:
    Actually, if I were a clever spook, I would have made *sure* Manafort had a phone and lots of opportunities to use it. And then recorded every single call.
    Good way to find out what he’s up to.
    And if he’s making illegal calls, does attorney-client privilege apply?

  24. 24.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay:

    Let’s vow to crack down on white collar crime.

    Fantastic idea. “Rich people getting away with stuff” was one of the ways the Trump-curious and Hillary-skeptical understood “drain the swamp.” Of course that’s not what Trump meant at all and his whole administration is full of, and led by, shameless crooks. It’d be a great turnabout. Yes, Republicans will squawk about witchhunts and the politicized IRS and blah blah blah but tough shit, keep hammering it. It’s a Warren/Cordray kind of vibe with some of the Sanders anti-corruption stuff and some of the Doug Jones/Ralph Northam “good man” stuff, and hits Trump & Co. right in his stupid mouth, and there’s pretty much no downside. I am convinced. Make it so!

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    It’s gonna come out that he spends hour upon hour on the laptop looking at cat pictures.

  30. 30.

    Barbara

    @debbie: The whole motion was a ruse to try to get the trial postponed based on the inconvenience of being so far away from his counsel. When the judge responded by saying, “well let’s move you closer to avoid that inconvenience” they tried to oppose the move so he wouldn’t have to “adjust” to new prison conditions.

  31. 31.

    Calouste

    @NotMax: I’d assume that the jail records all calls inmates make unless they are to or from numbers that are explicitly identified as used by their lawyers.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    I found it interesting that a man who some thought worth placing on a suicide or murder watch has been issued an extension cord for extra privacy with his laptopping.

    @NCSteve:

    the professionals at the Alexandria Detention Center are very familiar with housing high-profile defendants including foreign and domestic terrorists, spies and traitors.

    I love that.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    OT.

    My, how language changes. Dialogue from movie on TCM just now.

    “Don’t bone me!”

    “Look, I – I just -”

    “You boned me.”

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Calouste: And I’ll guaran-fucking-tee that the NSA records them all, period. Along with about a half-dozen other intelligence services.

  40. 40.

    Sloane Ranger

    OK, this is marked as an Open Thread so I thought I’d share this with you.

    You might remember that just over a month ago my brother passed away unexpectedly while we were on holiday together in Berlin. Well, to cut a long story short, the German Funeral Directors told me that they had sent my brothers ashes out via DHL on 6 July and provided me with a tracking number. They said that they would take 4/5days to arrive.

    Based on that I arranged my brother’s Memorial Service and the scattering of his Ashes for 20 July. Today, I noticed that the Ashes, which had been in Cologne, were now in Brandenburg, or in other words, were going in the wrong direction. Contacted the Funeral Directors who went into panic mode. Turns out the Ashes were returned to sender by British customs as the package contained his personal effects as well as his Ashes.

    You can’t make this stuff up! Have to laugh, otherwise I’d cry hysterically!

  41. 41.

    Jay

    @debbie:

    Nope, remember, this is Watergate, Iran Contra, Enron and the Manchurian Cantidate, all rolled into one,

    But with morons.

  42. 42.

    Platonailedit

    @NCSteve:

    because the professionals at the Alexandria Detention Center are very familiar with housing high-profile defendants including foreign and domestic terrorists, spies and traitors.

    Boom.

  43. 43.

    Annie

    1. I’m sure every call made on a jail phone is bugged/recorded by the cops, except possibly calls to his lawyers. They’re supposed to be privileged but I would not bet my rent money on that.
    2. I’ve worked as a trial and litigation paralegal, and I don’t get the idea that Manafort needs to be out of jail, or even nearer to his lawyers, to help with trial prep. His lawyers (and their support staff, like I used to be) are more than occupied scheduling and preparing other witnesses, writing pretrial motions, preparing jury questionnaires (unless the feds use standard forms for these) and jury instructions (even if the feds have standard instructions, you need to list the ones you want given), and putting exhibits together. If the lawyers did their jobs properly, they got all the information they need from Manafort weeks ago. His lawyers will schedule a pretrial meeting with him, of course, but he does not need to hang out at their office. The few times clients came into the offices where I worked, to “help” with trial prep, either they got in the way, or I spent most of my time answering their questions rather than doing actual prep.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    The Asphalt Jungle.

    More or less, “Don’t try to put one over on me, don’t take me for a ride.”

    Followed a few minutes after with this:

    “Don’t take the word of a small time little liar who bones you without even trying.”

  46. 46.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay:

    Yup, one of the main reasons for voters cynicism is seeing how the wealthy get away with it all every fucking time.

  48. 48.

    Mike in DC

    Please, for the love of FSM, throw this overprivileged jackhole into regular federal prison after conviction. No perks, he wears the jumper and is in regular secure detention, not club fed. He will never flip otherwise. He’ll just wait for the 2020 post-election pardon.

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Annie: I posted this downstairs too, but I am enjoying the hell out of Paulie’s predicament. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. When all is said and done I’ll go to confession and get that washed away.

  52. 52.

    Raven

    @Gin & Tonic: Hey, I finalized (for now) my Providence trip in August. I’m going to fly into Logan and rent a car. I’m thinking about a 4 hr fluke trip out of Narraganset on Saturday since the other activity is golf. I’ll have Sunday to fool around be my afternoon flight.

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Promise will cease after this last one.

    “You boned me in front of a stranger, making me look small.”

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Mike in DC: I get the feeling he’s not getting a pardon. Loyalty to Dolt45 only runs one way: to him. He hasn’t shown any loyalty to anyone outside his family and even then it’s dicey. But Manafort is still acting like he’s somehow not only above it all but will escape every single charge. And it’s not even like he’s expecting a pardon. He’ll just skate because he ALWAYS does. Or because he’s used to officials he can bribe will place the right Benjamins in just the right palms. Except even that isn’t going to work because American justice has too many cogs in the machine.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    @NotMax: I’ve never heard the word “bone” for lying in my life. Not in detective fiction (unless missed it …) or in other dialogue.

    Did the writers make it up as teen slang, which didn’t actually exist, in lieu of some other word they couldn’t use? Or maybe I just missed that part of 1950s pop culture …

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    @bluefish: Yeah. I think that sentence got Manafort’s lawyers’ attention; put them on notice.

    And poor Roanoke. “We’re so dumb, we can’t figure out treason.” Or so Manafort and crew think.

  63. 63.

    randy khan

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Based on that I arranged my brother’s Memorial Service and the scattering of his Ashes for 20 July. Today, I noticed that the Ashes, which had been in Cologne, were now in Brandenburg, or in other words, were going in the wrong direction. Contacted the Funeral Directors who went into panic mode. Turns out the Ashes were returned to sender by British customs as the package contained his personal effects as well as his Ashes.

    Ouch.

    My wife once had a package that was going to Guam re-routed to Tokyo. It ended up in customs jail in Anchorage and it took days for FedEx to sort it out. But that was better than the package I sent to someone in New York that got delivered to the wrong office, and was returned to me nearly 20 years later, apparently after someone gave that office a thorough cleaning. The people I’d sent it to had gone out of business maybe 15 years before that.

  64. 64.

    Mandalay

    @Yarrow:

    We need to get tough on white collar crime.

    Only slightly O/T since this thread is also dealing with white privilege, we also need to get tougher on plain old white crime. Here’s a white Florida cop who was caught stealing $6,520 during a police raid:

    Immler was placed on probation for 12 months. According to court records, he also will voluntarily resign from West Palm Beach police…He is also the son of former Boynton Beach Police Chief Matthew Immler.

    Stealing $6,250 in Florida is a felony, yet the police chief’s son is only charged with a misdemeanor, no jail time and is allowed to voluntarily resign from the police.

    WTF???

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Sloane Ranger: EU Customs officials and DHL for the win! I’ve had experience with that, so you have both my empathy and sympathy.

    How you all holding up.

  66. 66.

    Barbara

    @debbie: There is no doubt in my mind that Judge Ellis is the wrong kind of judge for this sort of maneuvering. His statement that the lawyers can spend 8 hours a day with him if they choose made me laugh. He knows damn well that’s not what is going to happen.

  67. 67.

    MomSense

    OMG my 14 year old keeps calling me bish. I am nobody’s bish.

    FFS I do not want to learn a whole new teen slang.

    Get off my damn lawn.

  68. 68.

    Barbara

    @randy khan: Fed Ex often has a way of failing when you need it most not to fail, but that story kind of takes the cake. I once sent a document via DHL to a remote location in Indonesia and it got there just fine. At some point they call the recipient and arrange the exchange, and I assume that they take urgent package deliveries very seriously.

  69. 69.

    randy khan

    One kind of amusing takeaway from this is that Manafort is using his phone to talk to people other than his lawyers about his trial and legal strategy. That’s really, really stupid. (I know, what else is new with this guy?) I can only imagine what incriminating things he might have said that the feds have recorded. I kind of wonder if any of that is showing up in the pre-trial discovery dump.

  72. 72.

    Mike in NC

    Reminds me of the HBO show “Boardwalk Empire” where a prominent mobster in the slammer was allowed to furnish his extra large cell with Oriental rugs, expensive furniture, and a king size bed. I think there was also a phone on his desk. Hard time, indeed!

  76. 76.

    Platonailedit

    “Self-made”? Really? It’s easy to become a billionaire when you’re parents are millionaires…It’s called generational wealth + nepotism.

    Try Oprah Winfrey, who was raised on a small Mississippi farm by her grandmother, for self-made *whispers Kylie also isn’t a billionaire yet*

    pic.twitter.com/UQGrJxno8z— Shelby Ivey Christie (@bronze_bombSHEL) July 11, 2018

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    Not used as teen slang, uttered by a fully adult member of the underworld. In fact the lead actor, Sterling Hayden.

    Have a sneaking suspicion director John Huston was maybe slyly pushing the envelope just a bit, as it was 1950.

  79. 79.

    Raven

    @MomSense: we watched “Two For the Road” last night and it was weird hearing Albert Finney call Audrey Hepburn bitch several times!

  82. 82.

    Raven

    @Gin & Tonic: yea, I just want to get a feel for it there. I’ve fished Hatteras but not much up there save a stripper trip out of Kennybunk once.

  83. 83.

    TS (the original)

    @debbie:

    If he’s able to make so many fucking phone calls, I don’t know why he’s demanded to be moved to a facility closer to his attorneys

    He didn’t want to move – and now he is going – he has now learned about “be careful what you ask for …”

  84. 84.

    Raven

    @Annie: that’s what I was thinking when I lit it up but it was pretty much a bummer compared to the last time I saw it 45 years ago!

  86. 86.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Raven: If you’ve never been to Newport, that’s nice for a few hours too. If you go Sunday morning, most of the tourists will be sleeping off Saturday night, so you’ll have the place to yourself.

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    @Raven

    Back before the task at a summer camp of ordering movies was dumped into my lap, the person who did that brought in “Two for the Road.”

    Audience ranged in age from 6 to 14. The young kiddies were bored silly.

  91. 91.

    Yutsano

    @Elizabelle: I thought before the current sexual meaning that “boned” meant more like screwed over. At least that’s how I remember it. For what that’s worth.

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    God bless the Brits

    Trump Baby @ TrumpBabyUK
    Thank you to all my great supporters, really big progress is being made. When Little Donald found out I was in London, he wet his pants and ran away. Very unfair! Now I have to go to my very great golf course in Scotland where he is hiding. Total disgrace!

    Looks like a petition to persuade Scottish authorities to let the giant Baby Balloon float over trump’s golf course
    ETA: Ah, Change dot org… I don’t know if the Chief Constable is going to care. I hope Louise Mensch didn’t advise them one where to send it

  95. 95.

    Jay

    “What’s Trending Now
    1. socialism
    ‘a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government’

    2. uphold
    ‘to let stand’

    3. due process
    ‘a course of formal proceedings (as judicial proceedings)’

    4. asylum
    ‘protection from arrest and extradition given especially to political refugees’

    5. insubordinate
    ‘disobedient to authority’

  97. 97.

    TenguPhule

    @Barbara:

    There is no decent pizza anywhere within delivery distance in this little corner of Virginia.

    That’s not delivery, that’s Digiornos!

  98. 98.

    Sloane Ranger

    @MomSense: @Elizabelle: @Adam L Silverman:

    Thanks for asking. Some days are better than others but I feel like I am stuck in limbo, unable to properly say goodbye until the Service and scattering of his Ashes and, if he isn’t back by 20th, the scattering of his Ashes will have to be delayed by several weeks as I am having a total hip replacement on 24 July.

    The World Cup has been bittersweet. I know how much he was looking forward to it and how excited he would have been at England’s (comparative)success

  99. 99.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    Pretty sure “boning” is screwing someone – as in by lying to them about what’s about to happen, how much they’re going to be paid, putting a blade into their back when they expect a pat for doing a good job.

    Like Trump does so often. Examples, Manafort, Cohen, Hope Hicks, pretty much everyone but his kids. So far.

  101. 101.

    raven

    @Gin & Tonic: On my last trip the fishing trip got rained out and I decided I didn’t want to join the group fro the ceremony at the state capitol so I just took off driving. I had NO idea what Newport was and I had a great time wandering around. The I went and saw the battleship, the whaling museum in New Bedford and then back to a pizza joint near Brown. I also wandered around Boston a few years ago and that was fun. We visited Old Ironsides when I was a kid so that was extra fun.

  102. 102.

    Roger Moore

    @NotMax:

    My, how language changes. Dialogue from movie on TCM just now.

    I’m not sure that’s as big a change as you think. They can’t say “fuck” because of the Hayes Code, but they’re using the rudest synonym they can get away with.

  103. 103.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Yutsano:

    I thought before the current sexual meaning that “boned” meant more like screwed over.

    Aren’t those all variants on the same sexual meaning? You got a metaphorical bone stuck into you, or you got a metaphorical screw stuck into you. Dicking (over), fucking (over), screwing (over), boning. And “taking advantage of” is part of the same cluster too, right?

  104. 104.

    Anonymous At Work

    @NCSteve: Nah, it was the judge being puzzled that “You asked for this!” I mean, everyone knows that Manafort was really saying that the 2 hour drive should stay but serve as a reason to delay the trial until after the mid-terms so Trump can pardon him more safely.

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    @Roger Moore

    I think the difference is that nowadays it is more universally and more overtly perceived and defined as being primarily blue language.

  106. 106.

    VeniceRiley

    So paulie Walnuts was writing emails on a laptop brought to him that would then be taken out by someone on his team/family? And then they’d connect it to the internet and send his email. Wow.

  107. 107.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: Well, then, you’ve seen the major sights. Battleship Cove is kind of meh, but the whaling museum is pretty cool. It’s amazing when you think what economic powerhouses New Bedford and Nantucket were, back in the day. And then it all just collapsed.

  108. 108.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Oh, geez. I hope at least your brother would have found it funny, too. I know that mine probably would have.

    Condolences from another sister who lost a brother too young (he was only 51 — fuck fucking cancer).

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    One of my brothers got a wooden spoon broken over his head when he told our mom to stop bitching at him.

    Just sayin’. ?

  112. 112.

    Shana

    @Barbara: The only time I’ve ever dealt with DHL was for some medicine from our insurance’s online pharmacy. Package got “lost.” I hope the DHL employee who stole the high blood pressure medicine enjoyed it.

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was like “gunsel” — they were able to successfully lie to the Breen Office about the real meaning but knew perfectly well what it meant.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    I’m not sure that the vast majority would like it. A lot of people might just believe that white collar crime is normal. If only because it is seemingly so widespread. Many may also probably believe that their jobs depend on it.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    @Jay:
    I’d bet Manfort isn’t just trying to delay. He plays at a level where he has to play to win. He’s playing to win. He’s seemingly not used to playing at criminal levels or he is and actually knows how deep he’s in.

  117. 117.

    raven

    @Gin & Tonic: Yea I was fascinated, I guess there are actually two whaling museums there. I’d been on the Alabama withy old man and he knew so much abut those ships that it was not all that great by myself.

  118. 118.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Small, but very interesting (also free!), whaling museum inside a shopping center on Lahaina side of the island.

    Years ago when step-sister and family visited, took them there. They insisted their son (then maybe 12) was no fan of museums and it was a terrible idea. We had to drag him away to go hit outdoor stuff.

  122. 122.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    He does a great job of playing a lovable jerk in that one. Plus it has the greatest theme song ever written.

  123. 123.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Kathleen: Heh. “Bish” is a term from Japanese manga and anime, short for “bishoujo” meaning beautiful girl/woman/princess. It can also be applied to males, “bishounen”. The adjective form is “bishy”.

  124. 124.

    sukabi

    @NotMax: not just the NSA… Mueller’s probably been listening in since before his indictment, and probably has his ‘personnel’ phone tapped as well.

    Speaking of the NSA…hopefully they’re paying particular attention to Trump’s unsecured phones.

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