Trump's America

[Frelga]

I am not affiliated with Abramson, so not offensive to me. Why do you not think he is worth listening to? He's invested, which in this cynical age is a turn off for some, but so far his information has been accurate. No?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I have found him to be very loose with the truth in order to fit his agenda, particularly during the Democratic primary.

[Frelga]

Oh, that. Yeah. He was not on my radar then, but I heard more recently that he was overly attached to Sanders. For the legal side of the Trump story, I found him to be one of the better sources, often ahead of the mainstream media, and always making a distinction between the fact, speculation, and opinion. But certainly if you find someone off-putting, it's reasonable to limit your exposure to them.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If his saying that he thinks the person being indicted now is Kushner is indicative of the accuracy of his reporting on "the Trump story" I'm not impressed.

Of course, maybe I will eat my words tomorrow, but I would be more than shocked if that turned out to be true.

[Frelga]

He's currently saying Flynn or Manafort are more likely, although their lawyers have denied this.

It's all clearly a speculation at this point. I am more concerned about what Trump will do if he feels investigation is truly closing in.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Their lawyers wouldn't know until the arrests are actually made.

Sent from my LG G6 using Tapatalk

[Frelga]

Now NYT is saying that it is not confirmed that charges are accepted. What does that mean?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's Manafort. And his former business partner and protégé, Rick Gates. That suggests to me that the charges are not directly related to election collusion with the Russians, but rather the more broad issues involving Manafort's foreign lobbying and possible money laundering and tax fraud.

[Frelga]

Ukrainian sources did say that he left the country with millions that didn't exactly belong to him.

[Primula Baggins]

I'm wondering if Mueller is holding back on the more serious charges in hopes that one or both will flip.

[Frelga]

That's what Abramson (sorry, V) is saying. Although I'd say conspiracy against the United States is pretty darn serious (oh wait, it could just be tax fraud?). That he was an unregistered foreign agent we already knew.

Abramson also speculates that Mueller must have a lot of serious evidence, or he would have started much lower on the food chain. Also that the conspiracy charge is intended to set bail very high and keep him detained as leverage. And that not including Flynn, who could easily be indicted on the same charges, could mean that Flynn already flipped.

I'm paraphrasing because he's using the PITA Twitter thread format.

ALSO from USA Today

Former Trump campaign adviser GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS has pleaded guilty to a charge of making false statements to FBI agents. https://t.co/Fi9GW4XYdw

Happened​ October 5, unsealed today.

Here's live blog from 538, if you prefer.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/ma ... mp-russia/

[River]

The buzz that Manafort was going down started over the summer. He sounds like he had it coming.

The Papadopoulos story is the one to watch now, I think.

[yovargas]

Bit of a random aside but something I always find interesting with this stuff is that, despite Fox being the most watch news channel, whenever you google about the newest scandal, Fox is almost never on the front page. I find it interesting because I get curious about how the explicitly non-liberal outlets report this stuff and the answer often seems to be "quietly". The first Fox headline I found, currently on page 2, is "Erick Erickson: It's Paul Manafort's indictment, not Trump's", highlighting Trump's remaining innocence in a way the other major outlets are not. Interesting, IMO.

[Frelga]

Fox site headlines right now

1. Mueller gets his man

2. Far removed from campaign

3. We all knew (Kevin Spacey)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Papadopoulos story is the one to watch now, I think.

I agree. As Nate Silver says:

The Papadopoulos news changes my sense of the Manafort/Gates indictment. Especially since, as Perry said, it didn’t necessarily have to be released today.
That it was released today could be read as a “tell” from Mueller — a reminder to reporters, the White House, and everyone else interested in the story that the focus of his investigation ultimately is on Trump/Russia collusion. And that Mueller is looking for different ways into the case. On the one hand, you have a peripheral figure (Papadopoulos) who seems to be really, really interested in engineering collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. On the other hand, you have a major figure (Manafort) who’s up to a lot of shady, Russia-related stuff, but there’s been no allegation of collusion yet. So there are some interesting ingredients — but maybe they haven’t congealed into anything quite yet.
Still, the Papadopoulos news makes it seem more like Manafort is the means to an end for Mueller — and that the end is Trump and the 2016 campaign, not Manafort himself. It also seems quite possible that Mueller is still actively searching for evidence of high-level collusion, and that having Manafort and Gates in custody could help him to find it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And then there is this, that strongly suggests that Manafort's troubles may be just beginning:

In the affidavit connected to the George Papadopoulos case, there is reference to an email Papadopoulos sent to a foreign contact regarding setting up a meeting with what appears to be Paul Manafort (referred to as his “national chairman”). Papadopoulos writes the meeting has been “approved from our side.”
From the affidavit:
On or about July 14, 2106 Papadopoulos emailed FC2 and proposed a "meeting for August or September in the UK (London) with me and my national chairman, and maybe one other foreign policy advisor and you, members of President Putin’s office and the mfa to hold a day of consultations and to meet one another. It has been approved from our side."

[Primula Baggins]

Wow.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

After reading the indictment of Papadopolous, I see that "FC2" stands for "Foreign Contact No. 2," an unidentified woman who was introduced to Papadopolous as a relative of Putin's, but who turned out not to be a relative of Putin's, and who indicated that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails (sound familiar?). I wonder whether she may be the same female attorney who ended up meeting with Trump, Jr., Kushner and, let's see, who else?, Manafort, with the promise of providing dirt on Clinton.

[River]

It would be nice and tidy if FC2 is the attorney Trump Jr. arranged a meeting with, but there's no reason to assume there weren't multiple people peddling the same line about Clinton dirt (parsimony favors them being the same person, though).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

True enough.