Monthly Archives: November 2018

Manafort Destiny 2.

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A curious article appeared in the New York Times today.[1]  It seems a little disorganized as would be the case with important, but late-breaking news.  Still, it contains interesting points that whet the appetite for more information.

Robert Mueller has been investigating Russian interference in the American presidential election of November 2016.  Mueller’s team of prosecutors charged Paul Manafort, President Trump’s transient campaign manager, with various forms of fraud related to his work as a consultant to pro-Russian candidates in Ukraine through 2014.  Manafort worked out a plea deal with Mueller.  That deal required his full co-operation with the prosecutors.  Now, prosecutors want to break the deal.  They argue that Manafort has lied on multiple occasions.   They want to dump a ton of bricks on him.

To justify throwing the book at Manafort, the prosecutors could have to provide some evidence of exactly how and in what regard he did lie to them.  Failing that, the defense could claim that Manafort did provide truthful information.  Normally, the burden of proof rests on the prosecution.  Hence, the sentencing memorandum may reveal important information from Mueller’s investigation.  This might run beyond Paul Manafort’s actions as far as the president.

First, although he had a plea deal with the prosecutors, Manafort’s lawyers secretly consulted with President Trump’s lawyers about the lines of investigation being pursued by Mueller.  Although such discussions “violated no laws,” Mueller and his team are exercised nonetheless.   Did they have an agreement with Mr. Manafort that he would not consult with the President’s lawyers?  If they did, and if Manafort repeatedly stated that he had held no such talks even as his lawyers met with White House lawyers, then this would be grounds for breaking the plea deal.

Second, Mr. Mueller’s team “accused Mr. Manafort of holding out on them” despite his pledge to assist them in any matter they deemed relevant.  “Holding out” usually means withholding facts.  So far, the statements in the NYT are ambiguous.  According to Rudolph Giuliani, himself a former Federal prosecutor and now a special counsel to President Trump, “He [Robert Mueller] wants Manafort to incriminate Trump.”  Did Manafort deny any collusion?

Third, in one paragraph, the NYT states that President Trump’s “tweets” tried to imply that “he had some inside information.”  As evidence, the NYT story quotes Trump as saying that “the Mueller investigation are a total mess.  They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts.  They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want.”   Does the president have evidence to this effect?  If he does, then what does that say about the state of the Mueller investigation?

Finally, dumping Manafort back in the glue suggests that the federal prosecutors have no use for the testimony he has provided so far with regard to President Trump.  That is, Manafort may have denied any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russkies.  If this is the area in which he lied, then Mueller must have a bunch of solid evidence from other sources with which to prove that Manafort lied.  What is that source?  What is that evidence?

In any event, when will Robert Mueller report?

[1] Michael S. Schmidt, Sharon Lafraniere, and Maggie Haberman, “Manafort Lawyer Briefs Trump Team on Inquiry,” NYT, 28 November 2018.

The 2018 off term elections.

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Some of this is now out-dated, owing to continuing counts of ballots and recounts.

“Analyzing 417 House races that featured at least two candidates on the ballot, the AP determined that Democrats earned more than 51.4 million votes in competitive House races nationwide, or 52 percent, compared to 47.2 million votes cast, or 48 percent, for Republicans.”[1]

NB: Of 98.6 million votes cast, Republicans won about 47.8 percent of the 2016 vote.  Democrats won about 52 percent of the vote.

NB: The Democrats margin of victory was 4.2 million votes.  In the “American presidential election held on November 8, 2016,… Republican Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 2.8 million votes.[2]  NB: So two years of Trump government energized Democrats more than did Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  No surprise.

NB: Will this be enough to win the White House in 2020?  Basically (back of the envelope), it looks like Republicans pulled 74.6 percent of their 2016 turnout, while Democrats pulled 78 percent of their 2016 turnout.  Motivated by the Kavanaugh shenanigans, Republicans turned out much more than one might have expected.  Motivated by Trump-vulsion, Democrats turned out as one might have expected.

“According to the latest data, Democrats won the House popular vote by about seven percentage points in Tuesday night’s midterms.”  [NB: that works out to be something like 53 percent to 46 percent.]  Furthermore, “They picked up 29 Republican-held seats in the House, while losing two of their own incumbents, resulting in a net gain of 27 seats.”[3]

“From 1918 to 2016, the president’s party lost an average of 29 seats in midterm elections. In the 20 percent of elections where the president lost the most seats—which Ballotpedia defined as wave elections—his party lost at least 48 seats.”[4]  “In the 2010 midterms, by contrast, Republicans stormed into control of the House with a haul of 63 seats.”

“Each of America’s 50 states elects two senators, regardless of population, and only a third of the country’s Senate seats are voted on each election cycle.”  According to David Golove, a professor at the New York University School of Law, “That’s a radically undemocratic principle, and it gives rise to what we see, which is that the minority populations are going to have a disproportionate impact in the United States. That tends to mean conservatives have a disproportionate influence over the Senate.”

NB: OK, but his argument is with James Madison, not me.  Wear a cup.

The country is divided 52-48 percent.  A purely normal (see above) “blue wave” should not disguise this reality.

Still, if the Democrats have a good candidate[5] and can sustain their “get out the vote” effort, they have a fair chance of re-capturing the White House in 2020.

Of course, we’ll have to take what comes with getting Trump out of the White House.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/heres-how-your-state-turned-out-to-vote-in-the-midterm-election.html

[2] Donald Trump: 62,984,828; Hillary Clinton: 65,853,514.

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/08/democrats-republicans-senate-majority-minority-rule

[4] https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Congress_elections,_2018

[5] Aye, there’s the rub.  Could Corey Booker or Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden mount a credible candidacy?  More likely, JMO, Hillary Clinton will “offer to serve” when the midgets flame out.

Sessions Timed Out.

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Much attention now focuses on the fate of the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  Many people fear that the acting Attorney General will seek to close down or hamstring the current investigation.  However, there is another possibility.  Rather than restricting the current investigation, the acting AG could instruct Mueller to expand his investigation to include the so-called “Steele dossier” and any links to the campaign of Hillary Clinton.