https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...t-doing-reveals-plenty-about-what-it-is-doing
Despite the fact that witnesses in the Paul Manafort trial aren't mentioning Russia or Donald Trump, government prosecutors haven't asked about Russia or Trump, and U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III has even banned mention of "oligarchs" in his courtroom, Russia and Trump have indeed hung like a cloud over the proceedings.
The financial picture government prosecutors have painted of Manafort is one of a man with a preposterously lavish lifestyle, mounting bills, and increasing desperation as his lucrative political contracts in Ukraine dried up.
After making a salary of close to $2 million in 2012, Manafort's firm started bleeding cash in 2015, losing $630,000 that year and another $1.1 million in 2016. Those figures came from his bookkeeper for the past seven years, Heather Washkuhn, who many court watchers have viewed as the most devastating witness so far. What her testimony means is that at the time Manafort signed up to work for Trump's campaign for free, he had a growing number of delinquent bills, he nearly lost his health insurance, and he had entirely maxed out his lines of credit.
The natural question flowing from such a picture is, what exactly made the perch of being Trump's campaign chair so attractive to Manafort that he was willing to take on the work without drawing a salary?
If previous reporting is correct, we know that Manafort was likely trying to leverage his new post against an old debt of about $19 million he owed to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. In pursuit of easing that debt, Manafort appears to have offered private briefings about the campaign to Deripaska. And that offer spurs a follow-up question: What else was Manafort willing to do in exchange for getting out from under the weight of the crushing debt he was under?
Another telling development emerging from something Mueller isn't doing came with the news that he referred several new cases arising from his Russia investigation to the Southern District of New York. The case involves American lobbyists—Tony Podesta, Vin Weber, and possibly others—who may have broken U.S. laws by failing to register their work for a foreign government.
That tells us two things. First, Mueller has plenty of work on his plate and he clearly chose not to be taken off course of his main mandate: Russia's attack on our election and possible collusion with Team Trump. The referral expressly rejects Trump's incessant claim that Mueller is on a "witch hunt" and sets the investigation apart that of some other special counsel probes, like that of Ken Starr, who started investigating real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and ended up focusing on Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. In other words, Mueller doesn't need to go looking for wrongdoing because there's plenty of "there" there with Russia.
It's also worth noting that although we only learned about the referrals this week, they were made several months ago. Just another reminder that Mueller is light years ahead of where the public is as he and his team build out this Manafort case.
And finally, as journalist Garret Graff noted, the fact that Muller is handing extraneous inquiries off means that anything he's investigating in-house is likely directly related to Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. That includes everything from the secret Seychelles meeting with Erik Prince to Cambridge Analytica to the more recent revelations about the National Rifle Association, among other things.
Despite the fact that witnesses in the Paul Manafort trial aren't mentioning Russia or Donald Trump, government prosecutors haven't asked about Russia or Trump, and U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III has even banned mention of "oligarchs" in his courtroom, Russia and Trump have indeed hung like a cloud over the proceedings.
The financial picture government prosecutors have painted of Manafort is one of a man with a preposterously lavish lifestyle, mounting bills, and increasing desperation as his lucrative political contracts in Ukraine dried up.
After making a salary of close to $2 million in 2012, Manafort's firm started bleeding cash in 2015, losing $630,000 that year and another $1.1 million in 2016. Those figures came from his bookkeeper for the past seven years, Heather Washkuhn, who many court watchers have viewed as the most devastating witness so far. What her testimony means is that at the time Manafort signed up to work for Trump's campaign for free, he had a growing number of delinquent bills, he nearly lost his health insurance, and he had entirely maxed out his lines of credit.
The natural question flowing from such a picture is, what exactly made the perch of being Trump's campaign chair so attractive to Manafort that he was willing to take on the work without drawing a salary?
If previous reporting is correct, we know that Manafort was likely trying to leverage his new post against an old debt of about $19 million he owed to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. In pursuit of easing that debt, Manafort appears to have offered private briefings about the campaign to Deripaska. And that offer spurs a follow-up question: What else was Manafort willing to do in exchange for getting out from under the weight of the crushing debt he was under?
Another telling development emerging from something Mueller isn't doing came with the news that he referred several new cases arising from his Russia investigation to the Southern District of New York. The case involves American lobbyists—Tony Podesta, Vin Weber, and possibly others—who may have broken U.S. laws by failing to register their work for a foreign government.
That tells us two things. First, Mueller has plenty of work on his plate and he clearly chose not to be taken off course of his main mandate: Russia's attack on our election and possible collusion with Team Trump. The referral expressly rejects Trump's incessant claim that Mueller is on a "witch hunt" and sets the investigation apart that of some other special counsel probes, like that of Ken Starr, who started investigating real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and ended up focusing on Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. In other words, Mueller doesn't need to go looking for wrongdoing because there's plenty of "there" there with Russia.
It's also worth noting that although we only learned about the referrals this week, they were made several months ago. Just another reminder that Mueller is light years ahead of where the public is as he and his team build out this Manafort case.
And finally, as journalist Garret Graff noted, the fact that Muller is handing extraneous inquiries off means that anything he's investigating in-house is likely directly related to Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. That includes everything from the secret Seychelles meeting with Erik Prince to Cambridge Analytica to the more recent revelations about the National Rifle Association, among other things.
