Manafort decision

[Belsnickel]

(08-24-2018, 07:01 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Nobody that I know of is defending Trump. Just wondering why it’s different, and there is nothing I can see that says the information needs to be obtained illegally. It says you can’t receive something of value. We determined info is included. It says it can’t come from a foreigner. Christopher Steele is a foreigner as are the Russians he obtained it from. It says directly or indirectly. This was discussed on another thread where I was trying to find out the difference, but some people see every discussion as adversarial. I’d be happy to discuss it with you.

What would they mean by indirectly if not exactly this? It seems to say you can’t use an intermediary to do that which you are forbidden.

The law does not limit this to a state as seen in the second definition of a foreign national.

You're focusing on the campaign finance side of things. I'm intentionally not focusing on that. If paid for contributions from foreigners were against the law, then every campaign would have violated the law as there are people on the payroll that would qualify as such.

This is my point, here, that the issue isn't really one that falls into this category you all are hashing out.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-24-2018, 07:36 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: You're focusing on the campaign finance side of things. I'm intentionally not focusing on that. If paid for contributions from foreigners were against the law, then every campaign would have violated the law as there are people on the payroll that would qualify as such.

This is my point, here, that the issue isn't really one that falls into this category you all are hashing out.

I don’t know what other category to put it in as this was the law that was originally presented to me.

In the last thread I asked if paid for was the difference and I was told no. And let’s not forget Steele wasn’t the only foreigner. A lot of his info came from Russians. It seems weird that you can’t receive valuable information from foreigners but you can pay someone to go get it.

If junior had hired Fusion or a similar company to go to the meeting would he be in the clear?

Go ahead and answer and then I think I’m done. The weekend is upon us.

[Belsnickel]

(08-24-2018, 07:45 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I don’t know what other category to put it in as this was the law that was originally presented to me.

In the last thread I asked if paid for was the difference and I was told no. And let’s not forget Steele wasn’t the only foreigner. A lot of his info came from Russians. It seems weird that you can’t receive valuable information from foreigners but you can pay someone to go get it.

If junior had hired Fusion or a similar company to go to the meeting would he be in the clear?

If junior had hired an intermediary, there would still be issues. The information they were meeting about was obtained illegally. It was stolen information. If you receive stolen goods you are in violation of the law. If a contribution included a good or service that the campaign paid for, then employees would be violating campaign finance laws left and right. The difference that exists is, in part, that the campaign paid for the services. But mostly the difference lies in the means in which the information the Russians had was obtained.

I understand this was the law presented to you, I am saying that was wrong.

[fredtoast]

(08-24-2018, 07:45 PM)michaelsean Wrote:  It seems weird that you can’t receive valuable information from foreigners but you can pay someone to go get it. 

It is not weird at all if you realize the purpose is to keep the actions under the jurisdiction of US laws.

Does it seem weird that businesses can make formal contributions to the campaign funds of elected officials, but they can not just go to their homes and give them millions of dollars that no one knows about?

[fredtoast]

(08-24-2018, 07:55 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: If junior had hired an intermediary, there would still be issues. The information they were meeting about was obtained illegally. It was stolen information.

Beat me to it.

It is amazing how many people Fox News has convinced that secretly buy stolen information from Russian spies is exactly the same as hiring a US business to do legitimate research.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-24-2018, 07:55 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: If junior had hired an intermediary, there would still be issues. The information they were meeting about was obtained illegally. It was stolen information. If you receive stolen goods you are in violation of the law. If a contribution included a good or service that the campaign paid for, then employees would be violating campaign finance laws left and right. The difference that exists is, in part, that the campaign paid for the services. But mostly the difference lies in the means in which the information the Russians had was obtained.

I understand this was the law presented to you, I am saying that was wrong.

There was no information. It’s the soliciting of information that’s getting him. Unless they told him information was obtained through hackingor some other illegal means. I dont recall that if that’s the case.

Edit: Crap 5 mins after I said I’d end it I answer. I’m really really done now.

[Belsnickel]

(08-24-2018, 08:15 PM)michaelsean Wrote: There was no information. It’s the soliciting of information that’s getting him. Unless they told him information was obtained through hackingor some other illegal means. I dont recall that if that’s the case.

Edit: Crap 5 mins after I said I’d end it I answer. I’m really really done now.

The Russians offered information. Junior was jumping to get at it. Even if he wasn't told it was stolen he can still be criminally liable. If you receive something that is stolen, even if you weren't told, you can be charged with a crime.

[fredtoast]

(08-24-2018, 07:45 PM)michaelsean Wrote: If junior had hired Fusion or a similar company to go to the meeting would he be in the clear?

I don't know for sure, but at least it would have been out in the open and subject to regulation by US laws..  That way it could be determined if the donation was proper.

But guess why they didn't hire some one to do this for them.

[Vlad]

 
Damn. You folks still yapping about "collusion".

Just a reminder:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/16/watch_live_deputy_ag_rod_rosenstein_announcement.html
https://youtu.be/AEElrAhB3Uc

You mean you never heard that? CNN never commented on it? Say it aint so!

[Vlad]

(08-24-2018, 10:53 AM)fredtoast Wrote: The mental gymastics you all are going through to defend Trump is alarming. 

No, the mental gymnastics leftists are going through to try and take down a duly elected president is alarming.

The Obama campaign was fined $375,000 for illegal campaign contributions. Why didn't anyone care then?
No one cared. No one on the left and no one on the right.
Why do you care now?

Only because you cant stand Trump. You cant stand the way he talks, the way he looks, his unsophisticated approach.
He is the first Republican president the left can't make stay in his own lane.

[Vlad]

I have taken this article and reversed the players. Changes in bold.

Clinton changed to Trump...Trump changed to Clinton.

DNC to RNC..

If the roles were reversed, still nothing to see here? No big deal?

You wish Trump played this role because he wouldn't of lasted 6 months in office.
So does Mueller...eazy peazy.

On Oct. 24 the Washington Post, of all publications, reported that the TRUMP presidential campaign and the REPUBLICAN National Committee paid the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS to dig up all the dirt it could find on Hildebeest Clinton.


As we noted last month, beginning in April 2016, a TRUMP attorney, Mark Elias of Seattle-based Perkins Coie, paid Fusion GPS for the opposition CLINTON research. For the record, Elias worked with former White House Counsel Robert Bauer, who was also a partner at Perkins-Coie, known for its REPUBLICAN Party ties.

From June 2015 to December 2016, Perkins Coie took in $5.4 million from the RNC and a whopping $12.4 million from the TRUMP campaign as "legal fees." Perkins Coie's Elias secretly paid Fusion GPS for its "research" from the legal fees that TRUMP and the RNC forked over.

Funded to the hilt, Fusion GPS hired a former British spy named Christopher Steele, who previously headed British intelligence agency MI-6's Russian desk, ultimately paying him $168,000. Using his many Russian contacts, Steele put together a CLINTON dossier filled with rumors, innuendos and some outright lies — the kind of thing that could be incredibly damaging to CLINTON in a last-minute campaign blitz.
All of this is bad enough. None of it was disclosed in Federal Election Commission filings as required by law, so there is a very sound basis for legal action.
And somehow the dubious dossier made its way into the hands of both the media and the FBI, raising the obvious question: Did the FBI use essentially a political document funded by the REPUBLICANS to seek special surveillance from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on officials in the CLINTON campaign? Is that what started the whole "CLINTON collusion with Russia" ball rolling? If so, it's likely a major crime has been committed, one that would dwarf Watergate in its dimensions.

But it goes even deeper than that.
While the media shriek about the CLINTON campaign's alleged Russia ties, the REPUBLICAN Party in general and the TRUMP campaign in specific had very clear links to nefarious Russian figures, both inside and outside of Vladimir Putin's government.

Going back to the very beginnings of the Obama administration, Russian leader Vladimir Putin made extraordinary efforts to get a dominant foothold in the U.S. nuclear industry. Using the Russian state-owned nuclear monopoly Rosatom, Putin engaged in a campaign of "bribery, extortion, (and) money laundering" in his efforts to acquire Uranium One, a Canadian-based nuclear materials company that controls 20% of all U.S. domestic uranium supplies, according to Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Obama's Justice Department, then under Eric Holder, knew about this but did nothing about it. And, despite knowing about Russia's illegal activities, when the Rosatom bid to take over Uranium One came up for a vote, the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) approved it in 2010. Then-Secretary of State TRUMP, a member of the CFIUS board, voted in favor of the deal. So did Holder.

If that sounds funny, it should. Because it turns out that the TRUMP Foundation, the global "charity" run by TRUMP JR., had taken in an estimated $145 million from Uranium One shareholders and executives, mostly around the time the deal was being approved.

The Justice Department waited until 2014, after TRUMPS departure from office, to do anything about the Russian criminal activity. And details of the Uranium One deal didn't even emerge until 2015, after Holder left office. It reeks of quid-pro-quo double-dealing that involved TRUMP
using HIS powerful office of secretary of state to enrich HIS own private foundation and family.

[hollodero]

(08-24-2018, 09:35 PM)Vlad Wrote: The Obama campaign was fined $375,000 for illegal campaign contributions. Why didn't anyone care then?
No one cared. No one on the left and no one on the right.
Why do you care now?

Well, I consider that a case of what did the candidate know and when did he know it.
Obama knew nothing about it.
Trump knew all about it and then lied several times about it.

(08-24-2018, 09:35 PM)Vlad Wrote: Only because you cant stand Trump.

Yep, that sure plays its part.

(08-24-2018, 09:35 PM)Vlad Wrote: You cant stand the way he talks, the way he looks, his unsophisticated approach.

I don't have any issue with how he looks. And I've yet to hear from someone that Trump needs to get impeached on the grounds of his looks.
I do question his integrity, his qualification, his decency, his leadership and his intelligence though. Don't turn him into some kind of hero just because he doesn't have those things.

[fredtoast]

(08-24-2018, 09:35 PM)Vlad Wrote: The Obama campaign was fined $375,000 for illegal campaign contributions. Why didn't anyone care then?

Because it did not involve a foreign country influencing our election.  It had to do with lack of 48 notice for some large donations.  No evidence that an enemy force was colluding with our President.

Just ask Fox News why they did not even make a big deal about it.  Because it was not a big deal.

[GMDino]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/14/paul-manafort-plea-deal-muellers-team/1288931002/

Quote:Paul Manafort strikes deal with Mueller team, pleads guilty to two felony charges

WASHINGTON – Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's campaign, reached an agreement Friday to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and pleaded guilty to two felony conspiracy charges. 

“I plead guilty,” Manafort said.

Manafort's deal with prosecutors allows him to avoid a second federal trial in the District of Columbia after he was convicted of tax and bank fraud charges by a federal court jury in Virginia. Manafort faces up to a decade in federal prison for the two conspiracy charges.

The plea agreement makes Manafort the latest member of Trump's inner circle to cooperate with the investigation that has loomed over his presidency. And it suggests that investigators, who have brought charges against four Trump aides and two groups of Russian operatives, still have other targets in their sights. 

As recently as last month, Trump praised his former campaign manager, who he said said was a "brave man" who "refused to break." On Friday morning, however, that refusal came to an abrupt end. One of the prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, confirmed in court that Manafort was cooperating with the government's investigation. 

Manafort, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and purple tie, appeared upbeat as he arrived in court where he quickly took his place at the podium to enter his plea of guilty to two conspiracy counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice.

In brief responses, Manafort, 69, said he had sufficient time to consider his plea and that he was of sound mind.

Manafort's plea deal follows agreements that Mueller's team had already reached with Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Manafort's former deputy Rick Gates. Separately, Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, implicated him in a criminal campaign finance violation during his own plea hearing in federal court last month. 

"Once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign," Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said Friday. "The reason:  the President did nothing wrong."

Prosecutors working for Mueller earlier filed a new set of charges against Manafort on Friday in which they accused him of conspiring against the United States when he worked as an unregistered agent of a pro-Russian political faction in Ukraine and of conspiring to obstruct justice by seeking to persuade two people who had helped with that work to offer inaccurate accounts to federal investigators. 

The charges replace a raft of separate accusations that Manafort had failed to register as a foreign agent, lied to the government, laundered money and committed fraud. In the filing on Friday, Mueller's office said Manafort laundered more than $30 million from his work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, then "used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States." The crime, prosecutors said, spanned 11 years, ending in 2017.

On Friday morning, Weissman walked methodically through the assortment of allegations in a packed federal courtroom in Washington. When he finished, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson asked Manafort whether it was all true.

"It is," he replied.

Manafort’s wife, Kathleen, declined comment as she awaited the hearing.

She has been a constant presence at her husband’s court hearings and attended every day of testimony at Manafort’s trial last month in Virginia.

In addition to the criminal charges, prosecutors said in a court filing that Manafort could be forced to forfeit assets that would deal him a significant financial blow: four houses he owns, including an expansive retreat in the Hamptons, plus four bank accounts and the proceeds of a life insurance policy.

[GMDino]

What a dope.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/us/politics/mueller-paul-manafort-cooperation.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Quote:Manafort Breached Plea Deal by Repeatedly Lying, Mueller Says

• • WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, repeatedly lied to federal investigators in breach of a plea agreement he signed two months ago, the special counsel’s office said in a court filing late on Monday.

Prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said Mr. Manafort’s “crimes and lies” about “a variety of subject matters” relieve them of all promises they made to him in the plea agreement. But under the terms of the agreement, Mr. Manafort cannot withdraw his guilty plea.


Defense lawyers disagreed that Mr. Manafort has violated the deal. In the same filing, they said that Mr. Manafort has met repeatedly with the special counsel’s office and “believes he has provided truthful information.”


But given the impasse between the two sides, they asked Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to set a sentencing date for Mr. Manafort, who has been in solitary confinement in a detention center in Alexandria, Va., since June.

The dramatic development in the 11th hour of Mr. Manafort’s case is a fresh sign of the prosecutors’ aggressive approach in investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race and whether anyone in the Trump campaign knew about or assisted Moscow’s effort.

Mr. Manafort had hoped that in agreeing to cooperate with Mr. Mueller’s team, prosecutors would argue that he deserved a lighter punishment. He is expected to face at least a decade-long prison term for 10 felony counts ranging from financial fraud to conspiracy to obstruct justice.


Instead, after at least a dozen sessions with him, federal prosecutors have not only decided Mr. Manafort does not deserve leniency, but also could seek to refile other charges that they had agreed to dismiss as part of the plea deal.


The prosecutors did not describe what Mr. Manafort lied about, saying they would set forth “the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies” in an upcoming sentencing memo.


A jury in Northern Virginia convicted Mr. Manafort, 69, of eight counts of financial fraud in August stemming from his work as a political consultant in Ukraine. The jury deadlocked on 10 other charges.




Faced with a second trial in the District of Columbia on related charges in September, he pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts and to an open-ended arrangement requiring him to answer “fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly” questions about “any and all matters” of interest to the government.



It was unclear at that time how much information Mr. Manafort had to offer prosecutors. Legal experts suggested that if he was able to significantly further Mr. Mueller’s inquiry, he could have negotiated a more favorable deal.


As it is, the plea agreement specifies that if prosecutors decide that Mr. Manafort has failed to cooperate fully or “given false, misleading or incomplete information or testimony,” they can prosecute him for crimes to which he did not plead guilty to in the District of Columbia. They could also conceivably pursue the 10 charges on which the Virginia jury failed to reach a consensus.

[GMDino]

Anyone still following this dufus' adventures?

.@SenatorLankford says he doesn't think Trump's campaign boss giving polling data to person connected to Russian intel is collusion b/c Manafort knew the intel agent previously.

"This is an ongoing relationship that Manafort had...I don't see this as deliberate contact w/Russia" pic.twitter.com/yvsjM7y5yI

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2019