A Pardon Would Make Manafort Sing Like a Bird for Mueller
AND TRUMP’S BRAIN IS PERFECTLY WIRED TO UNDERSTAND HIS PROBLEM
There is a WHOLE lot of agonizing “will he or won’t he” over the talk of Trump pardoning some of his co-conspirators. This talk is such an egregious misunderstanding of the law, and of Trump’s lizard-brain, that you should suspect that the people saying it are hoping to take advantage of Trump’s dementia, just angling for a constitutional crisis that’ll increase clicks.
Time to adopt some ordinal numbers here:
1. The usual media narrative is that somehow pardons would make these people loyal to Trump. THE MEDIA IS WRONG. PARDONS WOULD INCENTIVE THE CROOKS TO TESTIFY AGAINST TRUMP. Why? Answer: pardons remove their legal jeopardy and thus their 5th Amendment right to silence, and leave the likes of Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort under threat of later perjury charges if they lie to the FBI. Result: the day after a pardon, Mueller’s Maulers come knocking and this time, they get to demand answers.
2. In addition, presidential pardons carry an automatic admission of guilt if accepted, and do nothing about state charges. For example: Manafort accepts a pardon on tax evasion, thus admitting guilt. The state of Virginia then arrests him for *state* tax evasion. Now he’s admitted evading his (federal) taxes, which due to the way the forms are set up almost automatically means he evaded his state taxes, and the pardon does nothing to protect him. Hmm, sounds like he needs a deal.
3. Let’s do a Roland Headley here and dive into Trump’s brain. What do we know about his deal-making? Answer: he does not understand win-win scenarios. He deeply believes that someone has to “lose” in every deal. This has been reported so many times I’m not going to go into it, but read the articles about his business dealings and it’ll be mentioned. Now imagine him assessing his “deal” with, say, Paul Manafort. Trump pardons Manafort, Manafort gets out of jail (briefly, see point 2) and then Manafort is asked to tell all to the FBI in the same week the state AG comes knocking about those admitted tax evasions. Manafort cuts a deal so fast he leaves sphericasia hanging in the air behind him. Trump loses the deal, Manafort wins it. TRUMP THINKS LIKE THIS. HE GETS IT. Notice that we’re not even invoking the famous “one way loyalty” aspect of Trump’s thinking.
4. The swagger factor? Admittedly, Trump knows that he’s in a public peeing match and that he needs to keep his base. Pardoning people helps. BUT… it doesn’t have to be Manafort. Trump can keep on pardoning other people instead.
5. And, the most effective use of the pardon is to dangle it in front of Manafort, hand-wave that he, Trump, will pardon Manafort on his last day in office. How to do that? Why, the exact same way as #4: pardon OTHER people. Keep Manafort dangling, twisting slowly in the wind, tantalized… except… Manafort is probably not that stupid. If he’d wanted to break out the pardon power, he could’ve started with Michael Flynn, back in February of 2017, or any of a long line of cooperators since then.
6. What would this strategy look like? If I’m right, and if Trump KNOWS that he “loses” the deal if he pardons Manafort, we would expect some things:
— We would expect Trump to pardon controversial conservatives instead. (CHECK! Arapio+)
— We would expect Republicans to be telling Trump a pardon would be a mistake.
“It would be an enormous mistake and misuse of his power to pardon,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a prominent moderate, told reporters.
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas), the second-ranking Senate GOP leader, said that pardoning Manafort “would be a mistake.”
— August 22nd, Alexander Bolton and Jordain Carney, The Hill, thehill.com/...
Notice Slippery Susan’s first six words, which are not covered up by her next six?
BIG CHECK MARK AGAIN.
— We would expect attempts by Trump to suborn the FBI and DOJ instead.
Trump has also said that he could take over Mueller’s investigation, concerning at alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, but has decided to stay out of it.
— August 22nd, Cianan Brennan, The Journal.IE, www.thejournal.ie/...
Never mind his months of firing people who protect Mueller (McCabe, Comey), firing people who work with Mueller (Ohr), pulling security clearances, etc.
CHECK, CHECK and CHECK.
Conclusion:
Trump loses if he pardons, and his personality is such that he can understand why.
And, a bonus point, since if you’ve read this far you’re actually interested:
7. Trump may want to save his pardons for the people in his innermost circle: treasurer cum accountant Alan Weisselberg, Don Jr., and Jared, rather than comparative outsiders like Manafort.
8. BONUS BONUS: Free peek into the future: Alan Weisselberg is frankly the MOST important person who will in the end have to testify against Trump, and (surprise!) the news media are barely mentioning the man’s name, even though he’s already being interviewed by NY AG officials. Weisselberg handled Trump’s financials for decades and he’s already on the hook himself for violations of charity laws.