Weighing in a little late here because of being off the grid in Quebec. But I also got what Maria and R1 got about the impact of the book not being enough.
It will take indictments and also I should add, something economic that sways the big party donors like a trade fiasco and maybe even Charles Koch throwing money at anti trump candidates to being trump down. It is coming though.
Well, the defense has rested its case. Please tell me there is no way that Trump will pardon a Manafort conviction. I think we would all be rather "unhinged" by such a move.
Paul, my understanding of the FBI trying to be as apolitical as possible doesn't include halting legal processes for a whole two months. But other people with better understanding of the FBI may have more light to shed on this.
It's definitely false that Russia always supports the far right. In Spain they have supported Podemos, that's best described as radical left. They also supported Syriza in Greece, and the Five Star Movement in Italy, both left-wing parties. And in the UK, they have been known to support Corbyn (they also support UKIP, the far-right Brexit party, at the same time).
One useful thing to understand about Russian politics is that they don't map well onto Western right-left. To our understanding, Putin is a cross between a moderate communist and a far-right social conservative, which doesn't feel strange at all to Russians, but it's difficult for us to wrap our heads around. So, when Russia supports far-right parties in the West, they can justify it on similarities about their very traditional ideas for society. When they support far-left parties, it's because of similarities on ideas about the government having the right to take money from any oligarch to fund whatever pet project they want, and on poor people having cheap access to resources. It would be wrong to classify Putin as far-right by our standards.
Gracesinger, my impression is that Trump is more likely to attempt to get rid of Mueller (good luck with that) rather than just pardon Manafort. He must be aware that Manafort is only one part of his problems.
Maria, I based my comments on who Putin chooses to funnel money to on Malcolm Nance's book.
Malcolm Nance is an author, and like all authors he has his ideology and his agenda. I don't doubt he's dug up a number of truths, but he probably hasn't looked for truths that don't fit his worldview, either.
Here's a report on who is pro-Russian in the EU:
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/The_Kremlins_Trojan_Horses_2_web_1115.pdf
As you can see, both far-right and far-left, and some parties that are hard to classify but have some radical ideas.
Malcolm Nance's entire career was in intelligence and a lot of it was in Russian counter intelligence. He is a VERY well respected intelligence professional who has contacts around the world still today.
I don't doubt, Maria, that Putin's interference involves cultivating both far-right and far-left. I'm pretty sure he was behind Jill Stein and wouldn't be surprised if he has influence over Bernie Sanders as well.
That said, he has an ace in the hole with Trump and the corrupt GOP that wouldn't be easy to replicate. So yes, I believe he absolutely will interfere in the 2018 midterms with the goal of building a dam against a blue wave and keeping GOP control of congress. It's clear that he not only has Trump by the short and curlies but a number of the GOP congressmen too. Witness their recent chummy visits over there. When it comes to sanctions, regulations, money laundering, prosecution of his oligarchs, etc etc, it's in his interests to keep Trump in power and if Dems win the house and/or senate, they'll impeach.
Here's an interesting article published yesterday in the Atlantic that I think is relevant to this discussion. It was written by John Sipher, a retired 28 year veteran of the CIA who actually ran the CIA's Russia operations.
He suggests that it's not that Putin has "Dirt" on Trump that binds them together, but rather that they share common interests and philosophies, that are getting stronger and converging. He sees that as a major threat to the U.S.. It's an article worth reading.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/convergence-is-worse-than-collusion/567368/
Sipher now runs an excellent website that provides good insights and analyses what is going on. The more detailed articles require subscription, but there is some free information that is worth checking out.
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/experts/john-sipher
My feeling is that Putin would be OK if the Democrats won the House of Representatives and impeached Trump. Then there would be President Pence, and he'd be OK with that. Pence isn't as volatile as Trump, and that makes him easier to influence. And if you look at how Pence has been going to bed with the nastiest big companies, like big tobacco, it's rather clear to me that he's fairly easy to bribe, and he has the minimum remnant of honesty needed to remain bribed, unlike Trump, that doesn't even have that.
Putin would lose some of his pawns in the House of Representatives, but then, my feeling is that Russia has infiltrated the Democratic Party a little as well. There's no point in having all the eggs in one basket, Clinton could have won. I agree that it looks like there are more Republican Congressmen under the influence of Russia, but still, Russia could probably prevent some of the things they don't want even with a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
In short, Russia doesn't need to replicate the current situation to keep most of the control they have on American politics. Especially since they don't have as much control as some Democratic activists seem to believe. The US has put new sanctions on Russia since Trump got elected. Either Putin doesn't have all that much control over Trump, or there are enough Republicans willing to go against Trump's wishes, but either way, Russia's influence is clearly less than they would like.
Things would get trickier for Putin if the Democratic Party won also the Senate, or if Pence got impeached as well. What would be a total disaster for him is if Pence got impeached and the Democrats insisted on putting a Democratic Speaker of the House as president. But then, that would also be totally unacceptable for Republicans, from the bottom all the way to the top. They'd be up in arms. Perhaps literally up in arms. And it's pretty unlikely.