MANAFORT: MAN OF THE SWAMP

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This is not about picking on somebody who is down. This is about the flag of the United States of America, the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with justice for all. This is about the soul of our nation. No, not "under God", but under the Constitution, the hallowed document containing those 229-year-old compromises that have resulted in the election of the current colluding (And what's wrong with that?) tweetmeister in the White House.

I will be brief. The media have outlined the unrebutted proof that Mr. Manafort defrauded the Internal Revenue Service, (i.e., those of us without offshore bank accounts in coded names), defrauded banks that loaned him money, put unreported income in overseas bank accounts that supported an absurdly lavish lifestyle, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Scores of witnesses, hundreds of pages of indisputable and undisputed documents, with no countervailing evidence. NONE.

There is only one theoretically possible avenue for a not-guilty verdict: a combination of Trumpist malevolence toward the prosecution, mixed in with  misunderstanding of a crusty trial judge's acerbic comments during the prosecution case. (The judge  didn't get a chance to show equal crust during the defense case, because the defense had none and produced none.)

Bear in mind, please, there is a second trial scheduled a few months down the line: that one in Washington D.C., and the issue there is Manafort's failure to register as an agent of the Putin-supported former leader of Ukraine. The fact that there are two trials is the result of calculated defense cynicism: media reports indicate Mueller offered to blend the first trial into the second, but defense lawyers figured the jury in Northern Virginia would likely be more "conservative" and therefore more favorable to Manafort than the jury they would likely get in D.C., and rejected the offer.  The calculation will be tested by this jury verdict. If it goes against Manafort, he is burnt toast.

If there is a hung jury on the first trial, his cynical defense strategy will have proved to be successful, but he is pissing against the wind: Mueller will retry this case, and Mueller will win in the second trial in D.C.  In either or both events, Manafort is done, and a presidential pardon is the only way he will avoid spending the rest of his life in an orange jump suit --assuming he can avoid indictment by New York State prosecutors for bank fraud, Martin Act violations, and jay-walking.

Nah, I have no confidential informants or tape recording of conversations with jurors or presidents: Just a disregard for alternative facts, and a confidence our system still works despite current challenges.

Unless ... .

A bientot.