Pavel Manafort's Trials and Tribulations

[GreyhoundFan]

"Manafort appears in court in wheelchair, to be sentenced in February"

Spoiler

(CNN)Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort appeared in a wheelchair in a Virginia courtroom Friday afternoon, where he learned he will be sentenced next February even while his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation continues.

His lawyer Kevin Downing said Manafort's health has "significant issues," related to the "terms of his confinement." He asked Judge T.S. Ellis to move on to the sentencing phase quickly, so he could be moved out of confinement at the Alexandria detention center and into a Bureau of Prisons facility, if he is sentenced to prison.

Manafort, who was convicted on eight counts in August, appeared in court in a wheelchair, with his right foot raised off the ground and in a sock. He is experiencing a serious medical condition -- inflammation that's related to his diet, a person familiar with Manafort's condition said.

In addition to setting the sentencing date for February 8, Ellis will dismiss 10 charges on which the jury could not reach a verdict during the August trial.

The prosecutors may be able to bring those charges back if his cooperation is not successful, and they will also have the option to ask the court to reduce his sentence later if Manafort is especially helpful to their ongoing investigation.

Manafort still may face an initial sentence of a decade or more in prison.

Manafort in September pleaded guilty before a different judge in DC to two criminal counts of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, setting in motion his cooperation deal to assist the special counsel's probe into the 2016 presidential election.

Ellis asked Mueller's team on Friday if they had an estimate on when Manafort's cooperation would end, and they said in court they did not.

Manafort's wife was not seen in the courtroom on Friday. She previously attended most of his hearings and the entirety of his Virginia trial.

The 69-year-old former Trump campaign chairman has been in jail since June, when a judge revoked his bail. He has been cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's team of late. CNN reported that Manafort's visits with the special counsel have stretched over at least nine days since he cut a deal a month ago, indicating he's shared dozens of hours' worth of details about Russians and Trump campaign affiliates.

Manafort's trial and admissions of guilt focused on his lobbying work for pro-Russian Ukrainians and barely touched his time in the Trump campaign. It's not yet known the extent of his contacts with Russians and Ukrainians throughout 2016, though Mueller is believed to have closely examined allegations that Manafort coordinated with the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Manafort is central to several of the most notable moments of 2016. He was an attendee of the Trump Tower meeting where Russians purportedly offered information to the campaign that could hurt Hillary Clinton; he offered private briefings on the campaign to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska; and he was instrumental at the Republican National Convention when the party softened its stance on Ukraine.

Manafort also stayed in touch through this year with his Russian associate Konstantin Kilimnik, whom prosecutors say has ties to the same Russian military intelligence operation that allegedly hacked the Democrats during the election.

He's anxious to get out of the Alexandria ADC and to a federal country club prison. Color me unsurprised.

[fraurosena]

Oh puhleeze! Poor Pavel has gout. That is incredibly painful (trust me, I know), but it most certainly isn’t life threatening. And it’s something you can easily fix by eating less proteins and taking some anti-inflammatory medication. Although I have no idea what prisoners are fed, somehow I don’t believe they are only given meat (the biggest source of proteins) to eat.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2018 by fraurosena

[GreyhoundFan]

15 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Oh puhleeze! Poor Pavel has gout. That is incredibly painful (trust me, I know), but it most certainly isn’t life threatening. And it’s something you can easily fix by eating less proteins and taking some anti-inflammatory medication. Although I have no idea what prisoners are fed, somehow I don’t believe they are only given meat (the biggest source of proteins) to eat.

From what I've heard, prisoners there are fed a diet heavy in carbohydrates, so I doubt he's eating a huge amount of meat. I'm sure pre-incarceration, he ate plenty of steaks, but not now.

[fraurosena]

I'm (slightly) nerdy and would have loved to be able to read these documents and know what I was actually seeing. Alas, I have absolutely no knowledge of American tax forms. Dang.

 

[47of74]

Sounds like Manafort might be up shit creek without a paddle

Quote

Paul Manafort has "breached" his plea agreement with the Justice Department by lying to the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's office two months after he started to cooperate in the Russia probe, prosecutors alleged Monday.

Manafort lied "on a variety of subject matters," violating his plea agreement, prosecutors said in a three-page filing signed by both the defense team and prosecution. Both sides ask the judge to now move his case toward sentencing.

Manafort states as part of the filing that he does not agree with prosecutor's description.

"He believes he has provided truthful information and does not agree with the government's characterization or that he has breached the agreement," the document states.

Here's the filing in question.

 

[fraurosena]

4 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Sounds like Manafort might be up shit creek without a paddle

Here's the filing in question.

 

Does this mean that we’ll find out what he lied about at his sentencing hearing?

 

[Maggie Mae]

On 10/22/2018 at 12:49 PM, fraurosena said:

I'm (slightly) nerdy and would have loved to be able to read these documents and know what I was actually seeing. Alas, I have absolutely no knowledge of American tax forms. Dang.

As far as I can tell (I stopped halfway through), he paid himself 25K in 2010, had an income of 502K (mostly dividends and capital gains). "only" 211K of that is taxable. Line 60 shows his "total tax" but then I get confused, because the next section asks about payments and he claims 433,000 was paid, and he overpaid by 409,601. Meaning he owes nothing. 

I have no idea. The IRS is not exactly known for it's clarity. 

[Howl]

On 10/22/2018 at 3:49 PM, fraurosena said:

Alas, I have absolutely no knowledge of American tax forms. Dang.

Beyond a certain point, American tax code is crazy. 

Twenty or so years ago, I visited with a friend of my moms who worked for IRS.  She was part of a group of  IRS CPAs taxed with rewriting various aspects of the tax code to make them at least functional.  They were struggling because so much of the tax code was too convoluted and at times, incomprehensible.

[fraurosena]

Aha! This is likely why the presidunce was on a tear this morning, attempting (for the umpteenth time) to discredit the Mueller investigation. If this is true, this has yuge implications. 

Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy

Quote

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told.

Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House.

It is unclear why Manafort wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers.

Manafort, 69, denies involvement in the hack and says the claim is “100% false”. His lawyers declined to answer the Guardian’s questions about the visits.

Manafort was jailed this year and was thought to have become a star cooperator in the Mueller inquiry. But on Monday Mueller said Manafort had repeatedly lied to the FBI, despite agreeing to cooperate two months ago in a plea deal. According to a court document, Manafort had committed “crimes and lies” on a “variety of subject matters”.

His defence team says he believes what he has told Mueller to be truthful and has not violated his deal.

Manafort’s first visit to the embassy took place a year after Assange sought asylum inside, two sources said.

A separate internal document written by Ecuador’s Senain intelligence agency and seen by the Guardian lists “Paul Manaford [sic]” as one of several well-known guests. It also mentions “Russians”.

According to two sources, Manafort returned to the embassy in 2015. He paid another visit in spring 2016, turning up alone, around the time Trump named him as his convention manager. The visit is tentatively dated to March.

Manafort’s 2016 visit to Assange lasted about 40 minutes, one source said, adding that the American was casually dressed when he exited the embassy, wearing sandy-coloured chinos, a cardigan and a light-coloured shirt.

Visitors normally register with embassy security guards and show their passports. Sources in Ecuador, however, say Manafort was not logged.

Embassy staff were aware only later of the potential significance of Manafort’s visit and his political role with Trump, it is understood.

The revelation could shed new light on the sequence of events in the run-up to summer 2016, when WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails hacked by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Hillary Clinton has said the hack contributed to her defeat.

The previously unreported Manafort-Assange connection is likely to be of interest to Mueller, who has been investigating possible contacts between WikiLeaks and associates of Trump including the political lobbyist Roger Stone and Donald Trump Jr.

One key question is when the Trump campaign was aware of the Kremlin’s hacking operation – and what, if anything, it did to encourage it. Trump has repeatedly denied collusion.

Earlier this year Mueller indicted 12 GRU intelligence officers for carrying out the hack, which began in March 2016.

In June of that year WikiLeaks emailed the GRU via an intermediary seeking the DNC material. After failed attempts, Vladimir Putin’s spies sent the documents in mid-July to WikiLeaks as an encrypted attachment.

According to sources, Manafort’s acquaintance with Assange goes back at least five years, to late 2012 or 2013, when the American was working in Ukraine and advising its Moscow-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Why Manafort sought out Assange in 2013 is unclear. During this period the veteran consultant was involved in black operations against Yanukovych’s chief political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, whom Yanukovych had jailed. Manafort ran an extensive lobbying operation featuring European former politicians.

He flew frequently from the US to Ukraine’s capital, Kiev – usually via Frankfurt but sometimes through London, flight records seen by the Guardian show.

Manafort is currently in jail in Alexandria, Virginia. In August a jury convicted him of crimes arising from his decade-long activities in Ukraine. They include large-scale money laundering and failure to pay US tax. Manafort pleaded guilty to further charges in order to avoid a second trial in Washington.

As well as accusing him of lying on Monday, the special counsel moved to set a date for Manafort to be sentenced.

One person familiar with WikiLeaks said Assange was motivated to damage the Democrats campaign because he believed a future Trump administration would be less likely to seek his extradition on possible charges of espionage. This fate had hung over Assange since 2010, when he released confidential US state department cables. It contributed to his decision to take refuge in the embassy.

According to the dossier written by the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, Manafort was at the centre of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and Russia’s leadership. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Clinton, Steele wrote, whom Putin “hated and feared”.

In a memo written soon after the DNC emails were published, Steele said: “The [hacking] operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of his campaign team.”

As a candidate Trump warmly welcomed the dump of DNC emails by Assange. In October 2016 he declared: “I love WikiLeaks.” Trump’s comments came after WikiLeaks released a second tranche of emails seized from the email account of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman.

The Trump White House subsequently sent out mixed messages over Assange and his legal fate. In 2017 and behind the scenes Assange tried to reach a deal with Trump’s Department of Justice that might see him avoid US prison.

In May 2017, , Manafort flew to Ecuador to hold talks with the country’s president-elect Lenín Moreno. The discussions, days before Moreno was sworn in, and before Manafort was indicted – were ostensibly about a large-scale Chinese investment.

However, one source in Quito suggests that Manafort also discreetly raised Assange’s plight. Another senior foreign ministry source said he was sceptical Assange was mentioned. At the time Moreno was expected to continue support for him.

Last week a court filing released in error suggested that the US justice department had secretly charged Assange with a criminal offence. Written by the assistant US attorney, Kellen Dwyer, the document did not say what Assange had been charged with or when the alleged offence took place.

 

[fraurosena]

Yep, Giuliani confirms it. This is why the presidunce is all riled up. 

Question is, how is it that the presidunce knows about how Manafort is being treated? ?

[fraurosena]

Of course, Pavel is denying it. But as he's a proven liar, I think I'll go with what Mueller has to say on the matter.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Uh, what? IIRC Roger Stone was corresponding with Wikileaks and he was Manafort's business partner. He's never met his business partner? 

Pull the other one, Paul. 

[Howl]

Lots and lots of speculation that Assange is the linchpin to the whole Russian/Trump/Manafort/DNC shitaroo and Manfort knows this or something.  Ecuador may be ready to release Assange to custody of the British who would then put him on a plane to the US, into the waiting arms of Mueller. Maybe. Still speculation, of course, but HEY! fun times! 

[AmazonGrace]

 

Rudy sorta kinda admitting that Trump tries to coordinate with Manafort. 

[fraurosena]

Well, that answers the question I posted above. This is how the presidunce knows of the inner workings of a Mueller team interrogation.

Fun thing is though, that Mueller probably knows all of this. And if Mueller is as good a strategist as everybody says he is, then you can bet he cunningly used that information to the advantage of the investigation.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

Big day for Paulie  Walnuts tomorrow!  Sentencing memo supposed to drop Friday at the end of the day/early evening.  Not getting my hopes up, because everything could be redacted! 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

It seems he's still afraid to appear in court. What's he scared of?

 

[CTRLZero]

6 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

It seems he's still afraid to appear in court. What's he scared of?

In this instance, it's a scheduling conference which means they are going to calendar some future event(s).  I'm surprised it's in-person, since when I worked in a law office, the dates were invariably submitted to the court for approval via written e-filed documents.   Maybe this proceeding is contentious, for some reason.  Interesting.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]