Not much about Trumpgate has made me smile, but this did
https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/paul-manafort-couldnt-convert-pdfs-to-word-documents.html
Actually, the more I thought about it, it all got me down again. These bastards have gotten away with so much for long in plain site they didn't think they needed to hide anything.
This is from a post I wrote last summer (it's one of the articles at the bottom of every page on this website); Reading Robert Mueller Reveals More than Just Russian Election Hacking:
https://www.jeannemayell.com/reading-robert-mueller-reveals-much-russian-election-hacking/
June 19th Scan:
Paul Manafort: (The number one person the FBI has been investigating first.)
- I have felt since I first heard his name that he is the original culprit on the American side – the one who linked foreign underworld figures, sketchy Russian bankers, even sketchier Russian oligarchs, and the Russian president with Trump and his team. Manafort’s aim was to peddle influence for foreign governments in American government. Peddling influence, i.e., lobbying, between American companies and even American local governments and the Federal government is legal and hum drum. But what Manafort did was was essentially sell the U.S. presidency to the Russians and other high bidders. He will likely end out getting prosecuted but I can’t imagine he will go to jail. He’s more likely to spend the rest of his life in a country that doesn’t extradite to the U.S. He will also hope to get pardoned by Trump, if Trump is around to do this for him.
- He is doing his own investigation – finding key people who could turn evidence against him and figuring out what to do about those people.
- Kushner also has holes in his taxes.
- There are also bundles of laundered money going to Manafort via real estate.
- Mueller feels he is going to get Manafort to cooperate. Otherwise, he is going to find a way to send him away for life.
- They, the Russians, approached Trump, not the other way around. Manafort was the key liaison.
- They worked with the Russian oligarchs and people with ties to the Russian mob (overlap here), the banks. Money laundering.
- This all happened through indirect conversations through liaisons, mostly set up by Paul Manafort.
- Manafort to Trump: back in 2013 or maybe even earlier: You have no idea how much money you can make. A billion? No problem.
Sept scan: A chasm. Mueller knows it’s a new era he’s working in. An era of lawlessness and lies. Anything goes including large scale efforts to discredit him and the FBI from all sources. So he has to be perfect, attention to details. Regarding Manafort, Mueller knows it’s like the OJ Simpson trial. He could make a clear case beyond reasonable doubt and still lose. He’s not going to have the GOP on his side. They will use Johnny Cochran moves.
Jeanne your reading of Monafort dovetails perfectly with the article. Former associates of his say ethics, morals and loyalty aren’t words in his vocabulary! He is addicted to power and money. He had a mental meltdown a few years ago after His foreign busniss took a big hit and his wife caught him cheating. His daughters even say he’s a hustler. He’a A bigger wack job than any of them.
Thank you, Yogagirl. I just read the Atlantic article about him, American Hustler.
It seems Manafort was prey to the same cravings that sucked the convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff into prison -- insatiable, addictive greed for stuff. He lived like an oligarch but without the oligarch's money. E.g., Manafort's daughter expressed an interest in horseback riding, so he bought her a farm near Palm Beach and stocked with expensive horses and full time staff. Then there was the Hampton's estate, complete with tennis courts, pool, and putting green.
It's the same problem that drives Trump and his son-in-law to commit treason -- paying off their own personal debt that comes from risky purchases.
These men are gambling addicts. They take big financial risks in order to live an oligarch's life, and then they commit huge crimes to pay off those debts.
I was surprised to read in the article that back in the 1980's Manafort suggested the Philippine president Marcos donate a hefty sum to the Reagan campaign in order to wield influence in the White House. But because Manafort, always needing cash, pocketed the money for himself, the money never reached the campaign, and Reagan never entered into that kind of treason. So what happened in 2016 with Trump was already in formation back in the 1980's.
I was surprised at the Reagan association too. One other thing came to mind when I read this article. If I remember correctly (you have to excuse me I have Chemo brain) wasn't there a reference early in the article about Monafort not being able to access his safe or his files after the Ukrainian leader was run out of the country? Could that be a hit? If I remember correctly didn't someone see a hidden room or safe that had incriminating info that the Repbs were afraid would be found? I believe that was in reference to Monafort?
That vision of the safe came from two people. I had a vision of a closet that I thought was in a Trump residence that was boarded off which I felt had documents incriminating to Trump. I think it was Judy who also had a symbolic vision of a safe that Trump locked himself into in an attempt to escape public prosecution.
A month or so later, it surfaced in the news, that a NY Times reporter overheard Trump's lawyer, Ty Cobb, at a Washington restaurant, talking about documents his colleague another top Trump lawyer, Donald McGahn, had locked in a safe that he had withheld from Mueller. The reporter wrote a story about it and Mueller went after the documents.