Paul Manafort breaches plea agreement, likely to receive 20+ years in jail

Xzi · Feb 20, 2019

CNN is reporting that the Mueller report may be ready to go as early as next week:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/20/politics/special-counsel-conclusion-announcement/index.html

Though I'm not sure how trustworthy CNN is any more, so take this with a grain of salt.

Xzi · Feb 21, 2019

Roger Stone has received a full gag order, after deciding it would be a good idea to post a picture of the judge presiding over his case with crosshairs next to her head on Instagram:

https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/02/21/roger-stone-gag-order-1179548

One more peep out of him and this moron is definitely going to jail until the trial. I'd bet he can't help himself.

There's also more reporting today that the Mueller investigation is likely to wrap up next week. This doesn't mean the prosecutorial phase is over, however, as there are still a lot of sealed indictments.

Hanafuda · Feb 21, 2019

Xzi said:
Roger Stone has received a full gag order, after deciding it would be a good idea to post a picture of the judge presiding over his case with crosshairs next to her head on Instagram:

https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/02/21/roger-stone-gag-order-1179548

One more peep out of him and this moron is definitely going to jail until the trial. I'd bet he can't help himself.

There's also more reporting today that the Mueller investigation is likely to wrap up next week. This doesn't mean the prosecutorial phase is over, however, as there are still a lot of sealed indictments.

Actually what I read at another gaming board is that the gag order applies to the attorneys, not to Stone himself, except he can't make statements on Courthouse property.

The picture is something he pulled off google, cropped and posted. Someone over at the other board I was reading had the original photo. It was a tactless move but I think it's a stretch to assume he meant it to be crosshairs next to her head. He didn't make the photo.

That said, Roger Stone gives me the heebie-jeebies just looking at him.

EDIT: nvm, I see now the gag order was 'enhanced' after he did this. Considering it was her photo he posted, not too surprising the judge would react this way. Don't blame her.

Xzi · Feb 21, 2019

Hanafuda said:
Actually what I read at another gaming board is that the gag order applies to the attorneys, not to Stone himself, except he can't make statements on Courthouse property.

That was the previous gag order, which was less strict. Now he's not to be mentioning anything about his case or his judge under threat of automatic jail time. Stone's all about the attention, though, much like Trump, so as I said I don't expect he'll be able to help himself.

Hanafuda said:
The picture is something he pulled off google, cropped and posted. Someone over at the other board I was reading had the original photo. It was a tactless move but I think it's a stretch to assume he meant it to be crosshairs next to her head. He didn't make the photo.

A pretty grave mistake to make while facing seven other serious charges already, if it was indeed a mistake.

Hanafuda said:
That said, Roger Stone gives me the heebie-jeebies just looking at him.

Roger's a cokehead, you can see the telltale signs in just about any video footage of him. Always doing that weird baring-his-teeth thing.

Xzi · Feb 23, 2019

Less than an hour ago Mueller filed a sentencing memo for Paul Manafort:

https://www.apnews.com/73ea05874b14439996546df7c8eebc03

I don't have all the highlights of the memo yet, as it did just come out an hour ago and it is over 800 pages, much of it redacted. Manafort is facing 17 to 22 years, likely life in jail at his age.

Yesterday we also had news that Cohen is giving investigators new info on Trump's business dealings:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/politics/michael-cohen-prosecutors-trump-organization.html

Cohen is scheduled to testify in an open hearing before Congress this coming Wednesday. Prepare your popcorn.

Xzi · Feb 27, 2019

The text of Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress, coming up later today, has been released early.

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000169-2d31-dc75-affd-bfb99a790001

It's twenty pages and very juicy, so I highly recommend you read the whole thing, but here are the highlights:

Donald Trump communicated with Roger Stone directly about his coordination with Wikileaks. Trump was personally aware in advance of the DNC hack. Roger Stone's indictment specifically notes that on the day of the Access Hollywood release, and subsequent WikiLeaks Dump, an “associate of the high-ranking Trump Campaign official sent a text message to STONE that read ‘well done.’"

Trump wrote and signed a personal check (which Cohen is providing to Congress) to pay the hush money that constituted a felony campaign finance violation for which Michael Cohen is now going to prison.

Trump made it clear Cohen was expected to lie about Trump Tower Moscow, and his lawyers edited the statement which lied about the timing. Michael Cohen has also pled guilty to that. This would appear to the basis of the Buzzfeed Story that SCO famously shot down without being specific about what it got wrong.

Cohen is bringing financial statements from Deutsche Bank (Trump's foreign lender) dating back 2011 - 2013. He's also bringing, and I quote, "copies of letters I wrote at Mr. Trump’s direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores."

All in all we're probably looking at the sitting president being implicated in a solid three to four felonies here. And Cohen is bringing hard evidence to back most of it. Shit just got super real.

Taleweaver · Feb 27, 2019

Okay...that is indeed one heck of a report.

Copies of letters I wrote at Mr. Trump’s direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

Just when you thought there could fall more skeletons out of the (clown car type of) closet, this happens. What the hell is this even about? We all know W. Bush was at best an average student...it didn't stop him from being...erm...okay, absolutely not my kind of president, but it was not like many took offense on his grades. So why threaten this in the first place?

Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates. In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell 5 me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.

Phew...that sort of thing sure is going to spark some controversies.

You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.

Erm...I can certainly understand "reviewed"...but EDITED???

And last but in no means least:

To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project

I hate to bash the conspiracies against Trump here, but this would seem like (as far as Cohen knows) Trump is indeed innocent to COLLUSION. Yes, he had a hundreds of millions deal with Russia on the line on which he lied, but it wasn't a deal in which things like "the assistance of Russian social engineers" or "hacking the ballots" where part of the deal.

IncredulousP · Feb 27, 2019

Taleweaver said:
Okay...that is indeed one heck of a report.

Copies of letters I wrote at Mr. Trump’s direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

Just when you thought there could fall more skeletons out of the (clown car type of) closet, this happens. What the hell is this even about? We all know W. Bush was at best an average student...it didn't stop him from being...erm...okay, absolutely not my kind of president, but it was not like many took offense on his grades. So why threaten this in the first place?

Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates. In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell 5 me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.

Phew...that sort of thing sure is going to spark some controversies.

You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.

Erm...I can certainly understand "reviewed"...but EDITED???

And last but in no means least:

To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project

I hate to bash the conspiracies against Trump here, but this would seem like (as far as Cohen knows) Trump is indeed innocent to COLLUSION. Yes, he had a hundreds of millions deal with Russia on the line on which he lied, but it wasn't a deal in which things like "the assistance of Russian social engineers" or "hacking the ballots" where part of the deal.

I might have believed the no collusion part, had he not met with Putin privately multiple times in spontaneous, unorthodox fashion. Hopefully his translators were subpoenaed.

Taleweaver · Feb 27, 2019

IncredulousP said:
I might have believed the no collusion part, had he not met with Putin privately multiple times in spontaneous, unorthodox fashion. Hopefully his translators were subpoenaed.

I don't see it confirmed in the text, but I've heard that Putin got a condo in that project as part of the deal. Those meetings could just be about that.

Then again... Maybe Trump was dumb enough to think that he could land such a project and be president on the side without the two interfering with each other, but that Helsinki show where Trump played lip service to Putin probably set him straight Trump probably acted that way because Putin had proof of these scandals as well.

Xzi · Feb 27, 2019

Taleweaver said:
I hate to bash the conspiracies against Trump here, but this would seem like (as far as Cohen knows) Trump is indeed innocent to COLLUSION. Yes, he had a hundreds of millions deal with Russia on the line on which he lied, but it wasn't a deal in which things like "the assistance of Russian social engineers" or "hacking the ballots" where part of the deal.

Did you miss the part where Trump was communicating with Stone directly about his connections to Wikileaks and the DNC hack? That definitely constitutes either collusion or conspiracy. I have a feeling more of those types of charges will be piled on to several individuals involved as Mueller is wrapping up. If Mueller can also connect Trump to Manafort's giveaway of US voter/polling data to the GRU, then that's potentially another count of collusion or conspiracy.

Taleweaver · Feb 28, 2019

Xzi said:
Did you miss the part where Trump was communicating with Stone directly about his connections to Wikileaks and the DNC hack? That definitely constitutes either collusion or conspiracy. I have a feeling more of those types of charges will be piled on to several individuals involved as Mueller is wrapping up. If Mueller can also connect Trump to Manafort's giveaway of US voter/polling data to the GRU, then that's potentially another count of collusion or conspiracy.

As much as I hoped different...yes, I missed that part. You're probably referring to this part:

A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes. 10 As I earlier stated, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails. In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

This honestly doesn't indicate to me that Trump ordered the hack, or even that it were Russians to begin with (let alone working for the Russian state). Rather the contrary: that response is more of someone reeking an opportunity rather than someone plotting against his opponent (and hearing that it's going his way). Sure, it's very unethical to use this sort of mud throwing in the election, but it's not like the US election were ever shiny beacons of ethics. It probably breaks yet another rule of participation in the presidential race, but I honestly don't know what any candidate should have been doing in this situation.

Sorry, but to me, collusion and conspiracy both mean that he had to actively pursuit these sorts of things, rather than use them when they came his way. That's of course still possible, but I guess this depends on what part Stone really played.

Xzi · Feb 28, 2019

Taleweaver said:
It probably breaks yet another rule of participation in the presidential race, but I honestly don't know what any candidate should have been doing in this situation.

Yes, accepting gifts or assistance from foreign entities during an election is against the law, regardless of whether Trump actively pursued that assistance or it just happened to "come to him."

Taleweaver said:
Sorry, but to me, collusion and conspiracy both mean that he had to actively pursuit these sorts of things, rather than use them when they came his way. That's of course still possible, but I guess this depends on what part Stone really played.

I don't think 'active pursuit' is required to meet the legal definition for either collusion or conspiracy, but I might be wrong. Mueller might be preparing an entirely different charge for the Trump-Stone-Wikileaks debacle.

Taleweaver · Feb 28, 2019

Xzi said:
Yes, accepting gifts or assistance from foreign entities during an election is against the law, regardless of whether Trump actively pursued that assistance or it just happened to "come to him."

Okay. I honestly didn't know that. Thanks for the information.

...okay, I've got a semi-unrelated question, then: does this mean that I can't put in a (small monetary) donation for Sanders' campaign because this would mean that "Belgium is colluding with the 2020 presidential campaign" ?

Xzi · Feb 28, 2019

Taleweaver said:
Okay. I honestly didn't know that. Thanks for the information.

...okay, I've got a semi-unrelated question, then: does this mean that I can't put in a (small monetary) donation for Sanders' campaign because this would mean that "Belgium is colluding with the 2020 presidential campaign" ?

Correct, donors are required to have a US address, no matter how small the donation. PACs (political action committees) work differently, however, and allow corporations and large donors to more easily conceal their identities. This is a result of the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling, and it has caused the amount of money involved in our elections to skyrocket.

Xzi · Mar 1, 2019

Largely lost in Cohen's testimony were ties to both Trump Jr and Ivanka for the hush money payments and the Trump Tower Moscow deal that eventually fell through (after Trump became president). Well, guess who's being called to testify in front of Congress next:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/28/house-oversight-trump-cohen-testimony-1196594

Also today, we have reporting that Trump ordered officials to give Jared Kushner a security clearance against the wishes of his own chief of staff and the CIA:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance.html

NYTimes said:
Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

Mr. Trump was definitive in his statements to The Times in a January interview.

“I was never involved with the security” clearances for his son-in-law, Mr. Trump said. “I know that there was issues back and forth about security for numerous people, actually. But I don’t want to get involved in that stuff.”

This guy seems to have a real hard-on for nepotism.

Lastly, of note is that two other individuals may be charged/jailed over Cohen's testimony: Matt Gaetz and Roger Stone. Gaetz seemingly threatened Cohen on Twitter prior to the testimony, and Stone commented on the testimony, though I'm not 100% sure the judge will consider it a violation of his gag order.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-matt-gaetz-cohen-investigation-20190227-story.html

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profil...hens-testimony-and-may-be-jailed-as-a-result/

Cylent1 · Mar 1, 2019

Xzi said:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...c76d5a-f18d-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html

Seems like associates of Trump have a very hard time sticking to the truth on any given subject, although that's probably not a shocker to anybody. This story broke yesterday and Trump is of course rage tweeting about it today. It also broke today that Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange months before e-mails hacked by Russia were published. Another piece of the puzzle fits into place:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...cret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy

It feels like a lot more dominoes are getting ready to fall soon after the Democrat-majority Congress is seated. Mueller's investigation is getting to about the length that the Watergate investigation was when it started to wrap up, so hang on to your butts.

NOT 1 lick of evidence or proof of Trump colluding with Russia (Which is not even a crime).
The Emails were not hacked, they were stolen by Seth Rich which was a dem insider that was killed over this. And don't try to act like it was a botched robbery, he still had his wallet including cash and cards, jewelry... What kinda robber doesn't take anything but a life?
Hillary and the dems paid for the Russian dirty dossier which has no credibility whatsoever.
Anybody who believes otherwise is dillusional and needs to seek professional help immediatly!

Xzi · Mar 1, 2019

Cylent1 said:
NOT 1 lick of evidence or proof of Trump colluding with Russia (Which is not even a crime).
The Emails were not hacked, they were stolen by Seth Rich which was a dem insider that was killed over this. And don't try to act like it was a botched robbery, he still had his wallet including cash and cards, jewelry... What kinda robber doesn't take anything but a life?
Hillary and the dems paid for the Russian dirty dossier which has no credibility whatsoever.
Anybody who believes otherwise is dillusional and needs to seek professional help immediatly!

You can believe whatever fantasy nonsense you want, but please don't fill this thread with dribble. You obviously haven't been following along, and I'm using it to post the facts of the investigation(s), wherever they may lead. I don't really care if that happens to trigger you.

Cylent1 · Mar 1, 2019

Xzi said:
You can believe whatever fantasy nonsense you want, but please don't fill this thread with dribble. You obviously haven't been following along, and I'm using it to post the facts of the investigation(s), wherever they may lead. I don't really care if that happens to trigger you.

Yeah keep trying to supress truth just because you are too closed minded to understand. I do not dribble, I present common sense truthful evidential facts, which by the way the left knows nothing about.
I have just as much of a right as anybody else to state my facts on this thread considering it is in the public domain. So that will not stop me. I bet you are one of those people who believe Illegal is not Illegal, huh?

Xzi · Mar 1, 2019

Cylent1 said:
Yeah keep trying to supress truth just because you are too closed minded to understand.

Oh I understand perfectly, you believe the "truth" comes from 4Chan rather than the Associated Press and BBC. Like I said, I just don't want to hear it here, keep it to yourself unless you're going to start a real discussion on one of these stories rather than simply barfing out a bunch of propagandist nonsense.

Taleweaver · Mar 1, 2019

Cylent1 said:
NOT 1 lick of evidence or proof of Trump colluding with Russia (Which is not even a crime).
The Emails were not hacked, they were stolen by Seth Rich which was a dem insider that was killed over this. And don't try to act like it was a botched robbery, he still had his wallet including cash and cards, jewelry... What kinda robber doesn't take anything but a life?
Hillary and the dems paid for the Russian dirty dossier which has no credibility whatsoever.
Anybody who believes otherwise is dillusional and needs to seek professional help immediatly!

Interesting...

... Okay, not really. You're not here to prove anyone wrong. You just ignore what's going on.

Paul Manafort breaches plea agreement, likely to receive 20+ years in jail

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