Manafort’s defense team rested without… well, without putting on a defense. At all. Which (REMINDER, IANAL), happens from time to time, but I was under the presumption that it happens when the defense is convinced that the prosecution did not prove their case. That is most certainly not the situation here. They didn’t put on a defense because they basically don’t have one, and the prospect of having any defense witnesses cross-examined would be terrifying to them. So this sounds plausible:
But let’s imagine for a moment that he knows something incriminating about the president — or even that the president isn’t sure what Manafort knows, but suspects that he might know something. (This, by the way, is Adam Davidson’s extremely plausible theory of Russian kompromat: Trump acts the way he does toward Vladimir Putin not because he knows Putin has damaging information on him, but because he just isn’t sure what Putin might have.) Would Trump actually go so far as to pardon Manafort, given the firestorm of criticism he’d get?
There are some lines even Trump is unwilling to cross. For instance, while he complains loudly about Attorney General Jeff Sessions not being able to protect him by shutting down the Mueller investigation, so far he hasn’t actually fired Sessions and replaced him with someone more pliable, presumably at least in part because his aides have convinced him that doing so would be a political disaster.
At the same time, Trump has spent the past 15 months since Mueller was appointed trying to discredit the investigation, in a campaign designed less to persuade the broader public than to convince his base that it is a witch hunt from start to finish and therefore everything it produces, no matter how factual and supported by evidence, should be ignored and discounted. He has obviously calculated, and rightly so, that if he can keep that base firmly behind him, Republicans in the House will never vote to impeach him, and even if Democrats took control of the chamber and did so, Republicans in the Senate would never vote to convict.
He doesn’t care if he is convicted because Trump will pardon him for keeping quiet. And as Joe Arpaio has shown, it doesn’t matter if you have to admit guilt to accept a pardon- you can just lie about that later and your idiot supporters will believe you.
Patricia Kayden
Probably true. Trump doesn’t appear to care about detractors and focuses solely on pleasing his base. Deplorables would be ecstatic if Trump pardoned Manafort. This would give the rest of us another reason to vote in November.
Baud
Predictions are kind of worthless because we don’t know what evidence Mueller will eventually put forward and how the public will react to it.
dr. bloor
PopeHat had a helpful reminder thread on this today. You don’t put on a defense if doing so carries the identifiable risk of making matters worse, including a number of ways in which precisely that might happen in Manafort’s case. Sitting down and shutting up was the defenses’s best option at this point.
More on topic, I am under the impression that Manafort’s leeway for clamming up about what he knows disappears if he is given a pardon by Trump, as he no longer risks prosecution and loses his fifth amendment rights. Am I mistaken?
joel hanes
I predict that Manafort will not break, and will go to jail.
Not because he’s confident that The Donald will pardon him, but because he’s terrified of what will happen if he even appears to threaten to rat out Putin and the Russian oligarchs.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@joel hanes:
Yeah. I’m hardly an expert here, but this seems to be the most likely here. I think he’s scared about what would happen to him but even more scared shitless about what might happen to his children.
Poptartacus
He can go into witness protection
https://youtu.be/lQ0j5yGz7Bs
TenguPhule
Evidence not evident.
cain
@joel hanes:
I agree. I think that is precisely why he’s doing it. He fears the Russians and most likely they can get him in jail if he rats them out or go after his family.
TenguPhule
@joel hanes:
That won’t save him. They can’t risk that he might change his mind later.
Pharniel
@dr. bloor: Not against state crimes.
Basically he can still take the 5th vs. state crimes unless granted a deal.
Wick
Accepting a pardon is not an admission of guilt.
For that matter, you don’t have to accept a pardon; pardons happen whether you accept them or not.
randy khan
The big difference between Manafort and Arpaio if you’re looking at it based on Trump’s previous statements and actions is that he had a lot of nice things to say about Arpaio, while he’s been denigrating Manafort for a while – he’s said Manafort was only slightly involved in campaign and that he barely knows him. You could conclude that Trump has written him off. In that context, a pardon seems less likely.
But it’s Trump, so really nobody knows. And while I think Manafort is pretty stupid (I mean, he was stupid enough to leave a paper trail when he tried to tamper with witnesses), I don’t think he’s stupid enough to count on Trump to do anything. Like joel hanes, I think he’s more worried about the Russians than anything else, and that’s why he hasn’t pled out.
LAO
Honestly, I’m with @popehat here. There are a lot of simple, regular reasons for not putting on a defense case.
mike in dc
@joel hanes: As I’ve said before, since it started 47 years ago, nobody who’s gone into witness protection(and stayed there) has ever been killed while in WITSEC. A few who left WITSEC did, if I remember correctly, but nobody in it does. If they blow their cover, they get whisked away to another cover. WITSEC would put Manafort’s whole family under protection as well.
18000 and 0 or thereabouts.
Uncle Omar
@TenguPhule: Right, remember the scene in Casino where the mobsters had their meeting in the courthouse meeting room and decided that everybody who might know anything had to be whacked? That’s what Putin and his gang will do. On Manafort not testifying, when I was in prosecution we all hoped the Defendant would take the stand because he/she would always screw the pooch somewhere along the line under cross-examination.
The Ancient Randonneur
I am not an expert on these matters. Not even on the internet. I’ll just wait to see how this plays out.
The only thing I can influence right now is voting. First Tuesday in November. Mark it on your calendar. Our democracy is hanging on by a thread.
raven
@Uncle Omar: Wise guys are puppies compared to Russians. Watch “Eastern Promises” to get a glimpse.
The Ancient Randonneur
@LAO:
Amen. The rest of this speculation belongs on an Alex Jones website.
Wick
@Wick: My bad. A pardon can be rejected. It still isn’t an admission of guilt.
Chetan Murthy
@Wick: In 1915, the Supreme Court indeed said, of pardons, that “acceptance” carries “a confession of” guilt.
In 1833, the Supreme Court ultimately weighed in on the issue, ruling “A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.”
debbie
@LAO:
Psyching out the jury would be one, right? Get them to think you think there’s nothing to defend.
The Dangerman
IANAL (but I did stay at a blah blah blah). If I had to put money on an outcome, I’d go hung jury. Two reasons. One, the judge wasn’t given a chance to be a prick against the defense, just be a prick to the prosecution. Two, more and more importantly, there is probably at least one FOX-loving juror that has seen FOX lambaste this trial as a witchhunt. Yeah, he or she shouldn’t be watching FOX talking about this trial, but, again, all they need is one loser. Plus, if I were slimey enough to watch FOX, I’d be slimey enough to think there could be a payday to hang this trial. Not that there will be one, there could be one.
So, my odds … 60 hung … 40 convict … 0 for innocence.
MJS
@raven: Pfft. I’ve seen a 50 something year old Denzel Washington kick the shit out of a whole group of Russians. Killed them all. Also, a really small Sylvester Stallone whooped up on a Russian. They’re not so tough.
Lapassionara
@The Ancient Randonneur: Yes. This,
Patricia Kayden
@raven: That was a brutal movie. That fighting scene in the bathroom stands out.
Poptartacus
He will be convicted on all counts
raven
@Patricia Kayden: Insane wasn’t it. Vigo was awesome.
japa21
IANAL but I seem to recall that a pardon only means a person cannot take the fifth when questioned about actions relating to the crime of which he was convicted. IOW, he could still take the fifth about anything relating to Russian collusion (conspiracy) with the campaign.
Barbara
So long as Manafort did not testify there was no point in trying to put anything else in. Better to maintain the government didn’t meet its burden than highlight Manafort’s refusal to personally testify that Gates was responsible for everything.
LAO
@debbie: Sure. But there are other possibilities. One example is, I think, based upon my own experience that the defense got a poor ruling on the Rule 404(b) evidence the government sought to produce should he testify. (Other bad act evidence). The defense has to be very careful not “to open the door” for the admission of otherwise inadmissible evidence. This is nothing special to Manafort. This happens in virtually every federal criminal trial.
Adam L Silverman
Waldman should read his own paper…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/08/14/as-trump-keeps-raging-at-mueller-another-poll-shows-his-lies-are-failing/?utm_term=.6eeb7efc1281
Much more at the link.
raven
@LAO: Rule 303 on the Velt.
germy
Saw BlacKkKlansman today. Enjoyed the movie, but the theater turned on the house lights right before the last scene started, before the credits. Not sure why they did that.
And we saw Sorry To Bother You a few weeks ago, and I noticed a very stern-looking usher (or whatever they call them nowadays) walk through the theater three times during the film and glare at the audience.
I guess I’m being paranoid.
Another Scott
He should be convicted on all counts. Will he? Dunno.
In other news, TeamPelosi:
You folks in Houston should show up there and offer your support, if you’re able.
As TAR says above at #16, Eyes on the Prize. 83 days to go…
ETA – Oh, and I don’t think Donnie will pardon Manafort. He doesn’t care about him enough to do so and there’s no upside for Donald.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gravenstone
Presumes Manafort has supporters. More likely he only has clients and marks.
Chetan Murthy
@Gravenstone: A twisted excuse for a human being like that? What he did (or tried to do — I didn’t read the texts, only a brief description of them) to his wife? Fuuuuuck no. Like Lord Littledick, he’s got victims, clients, and a few co-conspirators (who are busy sorting themselves into one of the two other bins).
LongHairedWeirdo
One obvious reason not to present a defense is to fear you have nothing to offer that will survive cross-examination. If you play it snooty and arrogant enough, you *might* even help the jury think that the prosecution hasn’t made their case, even if, deep down, you know they have.
So it’s possible that they shot their wad during cross-examination; it could be that they aren’t sure they have unimpeachable witnesses, so they don’t dare present any.
germy
@Another Scott:
I would have thought that about Arpaio.
Baud
@Another Scott: Senator Garcia obviously doesn’t watch NBC.
PPCLI
IANAL, but it seems to me that a side benefit of beginning with the tax charges before prosecuting Manafort for other things is that it lays out a path to state tax charges immediately if a pardon happens. If he wasn’t declaring that income to the Feds he presumably wasn’t declaring it to whatever state he should have been paying taxes to.
Major Major Major Major
The Manafort Endgame sounds like the name of a Ludlum novel.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Agreed.
LAO
@germy: Apario was about the base. I don’t see them caring about Manafort. But, who really knows.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Those were unreadable. They would start well but I could never finish them.
Major Major Major Major
Christine Hallquist will make history as first openly transgender major party nominee for governor, CNN projects
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/14/politics/christine-hallquist-transgender-candidate-vermont-governor/index.html
jonas
@The Dangerman: That sounds about right to me. My hunch is that the defense is confident enough that there are one or more Trumpsters on the jury that they can count on to gum things up, and could thus sort of just phone it in at this point. We’ll see of course what they have to say during closing arguments. If that’s also phoning it in, then it’s bad news: they have some jurors in their Fox-lined pockets and they know it. That, and the fact that the judge basically spent the entire trial openly broadcasting his opinion that he thought the prosecution was full of shit. Despite all the, you know, damning evidence.
American justice. The Best Money Can Buy™
Another Scott
@germy: Donnie loves, loves, loves Sherriff Joe. So does his base.
His base doesn’t care about Manafort.
[ As LAO already said, above. ]
Manafort is a disposable tool, for Yanukovych, for Putin, and for Donnie. The only value Manafort has to Donnie now is by keeping quiet about the Russia Conspiracy stuff. Since this trial wasn’t about the Russia Conspiracy stuff, a pardon for this conviction (assuming it happens, and survives appeal) is useless.
IANAL. Just my musings…
Cheers,
Scott.
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@germy: I think the Arpaio pardon was about Arpaio having a cult following like Donald has or wanted to have, so he gets some of the Arpaio cult love with the pardon. There is no cult of Manafort to draw favor from. ETA or what @Another Scott: said,
MobileForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: I admit to being very, very surprised and simultaneously impressed.
hitchhiker
OT: I think the Dems should launch a 100% Turnout Challenge for every district in the USA. Top 10 winners earn something — wouldn’t even matter much what. For the family with the most people who voted, a visit from the Obama family, maybe. A trip to see the new congress sworn in. Something symbolic.
We have to start setting a standard of 100% Turnout; it’s how we rid ourselves of this wretched mob of gangsters and fools. When we vote, we win.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Which party?
p.a.
@Another Scott: Fox (someone in the Y gym keeps turning it on) has been on the ‘50 Dems against Pelosi, Dems are in disarray, Libtard. ancy is Dooooooommmmmeeedd’ train for a while. 193-ish Dems currently in HoR. Innumeracy is a conservative voter hallmark.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: D
NotMax
Ain’t no pardon forthcoming. Dolt 45 is not one to play coy and leave it unmentioned beforehand. The silence about it is the tell right there.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I was jk.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Major Major Major Major: Despite all the headwinds, we’re still making progress and moving forward in fits and starts. USA!! ?? ?️?
trollhattan
@germy:
Arpaio is kind of a rodeo clown despised by Democrats and decent people, so Trump pardoned him to piss people off. But he had no connection to Donny–Manafort has different status in that regard. But “Bla, bla, bla, Massive Witch Hunt, innocent victim, I must pardon” seems all too plausible.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: well, Vermont is weird…
germy
@Another Scott: Makes sense to me now.
Omnes Omnibus
@LAO: Yep, but that won’t stop people from freaking out.
NotMax
@germy
Arpaiao is a touchstone and a dog whistle for the radical right, all rolled into one.
Manafort does not come with that dire baggage, he is is “just some guy” in that mutantverse.
evodevo
@LAO: If my local Trumpers are any indication, they don’t have a clue who ANY of these people are …they only hear “witch hunt” from Fixed News, but they aren’t really familiar with who a majority of the witches are, nor do they seem to understand how many witches have been indicted/convicted/pled whatever. Current events isn’t their strong subject.
The Dangerman
Oh, and put me down on betting Trump doesn’t pardon him but instead goes with the “Paul who? Never heard of him” tactic.
Arpaio was different. Racists gotta stick together.
ETA: Or what NotMax said two floors up.
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@evodevo: Ah yes, I forgot the Fox Arpaio drumbeat. If they start evangelizing for Manafort specifically that might move the pardon needle. I doubt it, but if they create an imaginary ground swell, Trump might buy it.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think anyone is going to feel secure unless a “guilty” verdict comes down from the jury. There’s just been too much open fuckery since Trump’s election for people to feel like he’s actually going to get convicted.
Mnemosyne
@hitchhiker:
We want 100 percent turnout OF DEMOCRATS, though. In many areas, 100 percent turnout of all voters would mean the Democrats getting their asses kicked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Okay, I get that, but every person on this blog with criminal law experience has said nothing really weird went on. OTOH, juries are unpredictable.
Frankensteinbeck
I doubt it seriously. If Trump were going to pardon people so they wouldn’t talk, he’d have done it already. He has made it ABUNDANTLY plain that anyone who gets in legal trouble serving him is not only on their own, he will throw them to the wolves himself.
Arpaio is a totally different situation. Arpaio has no real connection to Trump or Trump’s crimes. Arpaio in Trump’s eyes is a hero who was wrongly oppressed by the courts for his heroic actions. He did enjoy playing it up to the base, but it was a moral statement on Trump’s part – he and his presidency support brutalizing brown people, and will defend anyone’s right to do so.
Ohio Mom
@Poptartacus: Is the Witness Protection an American invention? If so, what does that say about us?
Has the program ever had to hide someone from the Russians before?
I can’t see Manafort picking that option because I don’t think he would think it’s a good bet. Putin would want to get him just for the terrorism value, to make it absolutely clear what happens if you cross him, that there will be no safe harbor anywhere.
Now, Putin might not succeed, maybe those Marshals would be his match, but you can’t know that in advance.
P.S. my nym is there but not my email?
Jay
@YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S):
They’d have to report on the Manifort Case, which they have been downplaying,
In the Fauxiverse, if a conspirator is convicted but Faux news doesn’t report it, did it happen?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I know. LAO and other NYC legal eagles have reassured us that the judge in this case is always kind of an abrupt asshole to everyone and we shouldn’t read anything into his behavior towards the prosecution.
I’m still nervous, though. And having “Never Gonna Give You Up” playing at Whole Foods isn’t helping. They must have put their 80s tape into the Muzak system.
LAO
@Mnemosyne: @Omnes Omnibus: I feel the need to second Omes, because the trial was so ordinary, there was nothing that deviated from the norm. And I include the judge acting like a dick because federal judges, by and large, are jerks to lawyers on both sides. I don’t know what’s going to happen because one never knows what a jury will do. But there were no shenanigans.
sralloway
@germy:
Was a projectionist many years ago, 1974. That is a big no-no. Never hit the house lights until credits are done.
LAO
@Mnemosyne: you did not just put that song in my head. Shakes fist!
hitchhiker
@Mnemosyne:
If 100% of everybody turned out, we would win in a landslide. There are more of us than there are Republicans, and right now the Independents are tilting hard in our direction.
Miss Bianca
@jonas: You know, I have to say it to you and the other “oh, the jury is going to be RIGGED, somehow, RIGGED, I tell you, because TRUMPERS”… it seems to me that y’all are exhibiting a bit of bad faith about these jurors in particular, and the jury system in general, in the absence of any real evidence. It’s true what LAO and O2 say, about the unpredictability of juries, but dang…the ones I’ve seen in action have seemed like thoughtful people who took their responsibilities seriously. In other words, I don’t get the rush to pessimistic panic.
Ruckus
Arpaio is a racist bully and a buffoon. That’s kin to shitgibbon.
Manafort was a hire. Hires are expendable. And as others have said he could have pardoned him before now.
Pardoning Arpaio didn’t cost him a penny and gained him status with the shitstains that support him. Pardoning Manafort or most anyone actually in his inner circle will cost him dearly. I’m not sure he knows/understands this but I’d bet at least someone has explained it to him. Besides he is rarely loyal to his loyal hires, someone that got themselves caught isn’t going to be his friend.
Ruckus
@LAO:
Question.
What if there is one juror who is a “trumper” and refuses to budge against the other, I”m assuming 11? Is that a hung jury and if so can’t the prosecution ask for another trial?
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: There are a lot of people here who are big into all institutions are failing. I happen not to be one of them.
Also, Manafort has another trial coming up. He won’t be two times lucky.
LAO
An 11-1 hung jury would result in a mistrial with an absolute right to re-try Manafort, no judicial permission required.
Calouste
@Ohio Mom: Putin’s killers are actually not the brightest. In the Novochik affair they turned an attempted assassination into basically a terrorist attack, the targets survived, they lost the nerve agent, and an innocent person was eventually killed.
In the polonium tea affair, they spilled so much of the stuff they could trace it back to the plane seats the killers were sitting in on their flight from Moscow.
It’s a wonder these guys didn’t kill themselves. And these were completely unprotected targets.
The Dangerman
@LAO:
10-2 needs judge sign off? Is this just Federal? i thought it was always up to the prosecution.
Aleta
I hope this is just the first trial for Manafort. I can believe T would pardon him. They’ll each look even more guilty of treason (not that they care) but maybe the price on Manafort’s head will also increase.
Pardon him (or jury lets him go) … does he have enough friends and $ in Eastern Europe to live on, stay safe? Or would T be up against the need to pay for his continued ‘retirement’? Neither one will trust the other to believe it’s over. If M has information to damage the T family, wouldn’t Duhnald jr, for one example, also want him dead?
I hope other charges are set in motion before the jury speaks.
burnspbesq
A pardon can keep Manafort out of prison, but not out of the poorhouse. If he’s convicted for willful failure to file FBARs, the conviction collaterally estops him from contesting willfulness in the subsequent civil penalty proceeding. With four years on the table the penalty is 200 percent of the account balances.
LAO
@The Dangerman: The numbers don’t matter. Hung juries always result in a mistrial with an unrestricted right to retry case in the feds (and NY).
Only time a mistrial can be grounds for a double jeopardy claim, is if the prosecution intentionally causes the mistrial. It’s rare.
Aleta
@LAO: NYT also.
Ohio Mom
@Calouste: They’ve succeeded well enough in other instances. I know the jokes about the Russians who “committed suicide” by shooting themselves in the head before throwing themselves off roofs, but even if it’s obvious who really killed them, they’re still dead.
I would suppose Putin’s henchmen, like any organization, probably has a mix ranging from star performers to inept, dead wood.
trnc
@hitchhiker:
Isn’t it illegal to offer something in turn for a vote, even if a specific candidate is not mentioned?
Jay
@trnc:
The offer of a prize is not for the voters, but instead the Democratic Party Group that can organize and “get out” the most voters.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
If it was a chain theater, they have all of the projectors running on a timed system and any movie that starts late runs the risk of having the house lights come on automatically. That happened after I paid $15 to see a broadcast of the Met and the theater couldn’t get the lights turned back off because of the way the system was set up. Many comp tickets were handed out that evening.
No explanation for the usher, though.
Calouste
@Ohio Mom: Well, in Russia Putin’s killers don’t have to worry about police interference or investigations. The police probably get warned to stay away from a certain street at a certain hour when an operation is happening. Things are more complicated abroad.
Wyatt Derp
Trump doesn’t have to pardon Manafort. As many have mentioned he will keep his mouth shut from fear of the Russians.
stan
If I were running Putin’s hit squad, I would not send my best and brightest abroad with a nerve agent. I’d send the dumbest, most expendable guy i had….because that stuff is dangerous to the user too…..