The language of the indictment is surprisingly legible (and blunt). This is a welcome change in how legalese is usually used as obfuscation, or possibly in anticipation of the many journalists and non-lawyers who would want to read it.
This HN submission was flagkilled; I vouched for it due to this reason.
Even though there is a political backdrop behind the investigation, there is still a newsworthy process to the law-and-order of a special investigation.
Why did paul go to Russia before the election? It's not like an outlandish claim considering we are discussing this on the thread about the guys indictment.
What point do you intend on making with this comment? Surely the burden of proof is on the claimant? If you have evidence that Trump hired Manafort strictly to collude with Russia, you may want to present it to Mueller's special investigation unit.
This isn't an accurate assertion, IMHO. Trump didn't set out to collude with Russia. He just has no morals or ethics and is wanted to win at any cost. Manafort promised him good things and he didn't care where it came from.
How did Trump collude with Russia again? I never quite see clear evidence for that even though it has been repeated multiple times.
And besides, wouldn't Trump collude with Ukraine since a lot of what the indictment is about?
As to why Trump hired him, it's not clear. He besides supporting and being lobbyist for various shady rules and governments he was also an adviser for Bush's and Dole's campaigns.
The Papadopoulos guilty plea, not the Gates and Manafort indictments, is about lieing about deliberate attempts to collide with the Russian government concerning the election.
> And besides, wouldn't Trump collude with Ukraine since a lot of what the indictment is about?
The indictment is largely about criminal acts before, during, and after the 2016 campaign related to Manafort and Gates relationship with Russian-backed political factions in Ukraine.
Interesting that there is nothing here related to the campaign - just some money laundering with Ukraine. Some would argue its outside the relevance of what the special prosecutor was hired for (Russian interference in the election).
Im guessing these charges are designed to scare Manafort into giving up the bigger fish.
Is this the only time they can file indictments? If not, they may have additional charges in the works. I imagine they would have told the judge "this is all we're planning to file" if they didn't have any other investigative work going on, right?
The mainstream media are mumbling about these charges being filed now because of some concerns about statutes of limitation. Nothing really clear and on the record though.
I don't recall the specifics, but there's a 10/31 deadline for IRS filings that sets the date on some tax evasion charges, and the oldest ones were going to lapse.
At this point they have been indicted and charges have been filed (the link this post points to). The steps for an investigation are very straightforward[0], and so now that we're past the charging process, if separate charges are found, it will result in another trial. I think it's pretty rare for simultaneous trials to be going on though, just based on anecdotal experience. It makes sense that prosecutors would want to wait to see the outcome of the first trial before issuing more charges.
> so now that we're past the charging process, if separate charges are found, it will result in another trial.
No, a superceding indictment can be filed to add, remove, or update charges. The page you linked to has a good general introduction to the process, but you are mistaken to conclude from it that once an indictment is filed it cannot be altered, and that a separate parallel track would need to be opened up for new charges.
No, when he was hired he was not constrained to only Russian interference. He was specifically instructed to prosecute any wrongdoing encountered while looking into election influencing and possible collusion with the trump campaign.
Probes are given wide latitude, and they are allowed to report on any illegal activity they encounter, which is how the real estate fraud whitewater probe got into perjury over blowjobs.
It might lead to more indictments, but even on its own the immediate indictments are justified. Also, for all you USA expats our there, remember to file your FBARs.
Foreign agents/lobbyists need to be registered, and participating in a political campaign or contributing to a foreign campaign with foreign money to a big no-no.
The fact that he did this and was in a campaign leadership role implies more to come. These are amateur hour mistakes -- the counsel for that campaign was incredibly bad or ignored by the candidate.
Money laundering, Income tax evasion, Unregistered Foreign Agent Lobbying, and that catchall favorite, False Statements to the government.
Now, this is an indictment, and it's essentially un-rebutted statements from the prosecutor. They could probably indict a ham sandwich if they tried hard enough. OTOH, there are a lot of specific wires listed there, so I'm not sure I'd be calling the prosecutor's bluff.
Speculation:
* This is in no way the end of the investigation. It may be all for Manafort/Gates, but there are more targets out there.
* Most of this is (potentially) pretty clear cut and supported by documentary evidence. There's probably tens of millions in forfeiture and fines, and potentially jail time there.
* This is the opening salvo in negotiations with Manafort/Gates. They probably know things that would be useful to the investigation. They can either help the investigation or face this indictment.
as a ukrainian that (mostly) lived through political perturbations in Ukraine during 2003-2013, where connection between ex-president Yanukovich and Manafort was widely known, it is almost baffling to now see connection between Trump and Manafort. one would imagine somebody running for president of the US would have been more careful picking his team.
when scam perpetrators and con artists get indicted, reasonable people stay away from them or their future endeavors. Trump/Manafort for me is the best indication that the political campaign was full of shady business.
Trump has shown time and time again that he isn’t the smartest cookie on the block, nor is he very willing to take advise from his advisors. All of this could have been avoided with a bit of caution. Collusion wouldn’t surprise me, but neither would this just being a set of very dumb choices.
The simple reason is that enough HN members flagged it to trigger the "[flagged]" tag. The deeper reason as to why HN members flagged it is tougher to answer as it involves speculation. I think it's likely because (a) it's off-topic per the guidelines given that it's pretty much pure politics and using the guidelines' heuristic of "if they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic", this meets it; and (b) topics of this nature, regardless of their importance are very rarely constructively discussed on HN. That's not to say it's not worth discussing; some forums (virtual and otherwise) are better suited for productive discussion of a particular topic than others. HN members often flag such submissions even if they believe the topic is important for just this reason.
36 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 75.1 ms ] threadEven though there is a political backdrop behind the investigation, there is still a newsworthy process to the law-and-order of a special investigation.
And besides, wouldn't Trump collude with Ukraine since a lot of what the indictment is about?
As to why Trump hired him, it's not clear. He besides supporting and being lobbyist for various shady rules and governments he was also an adviser for Bush's and Dole's campaigns.
The Papadopoulos guilty plea, not the Gates and Manafort indictments, is about lieing about deliberate attempts to collide with the Russian government concerning the election.
> And besides, wouldn't Trump collude with Ukraine since a lot of what the indictment is about?
The indictment is largely about criminal acts before, during, and after the 2016 campaign related to Manafort and Gates relationship with Russian-backed political factions in Ukraine.
Im guessing these charges are designed to scare Manafort into giving up the bigger fish.
They can file more charges.
[0] https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/steps-federal-crimi...
No, a superceding indictment can be filed to add, remove, or update charges. The page you linked to has a good general introduction to the process, but you are mistaken to conclude from it that once an indictment is filed it cannot be altered, and that a separate parallel track would need to be opened up for new charges.
It might lead to more indictments, but even on its own the immediate indictments are justified. Also, for all you USA expats our there, remember to file your FBARs.
The fact that he did this and was in a campaign leadership role implies more to come. These are amateur hour mistakes -- the counsel for that campaign was incredibly bad or ignored by the candidate.
Now, this is an indictment, and it's essentially un-rebutted statements from the prosecutor. They could probably indict a ham sandwich if they tried hard enough. OTOH, there are a lot of specific wires listed there, so I'm not sure I'd be calling the prosecutor's bluff.
Speculation:
* This is in no way the end of the investigation. It may be all for Manafort/Gates, but there are more targets out there.
* Most of this is (potentially) pretty clear cut and supported by documentary evidence. There's probably tens of millions in forfeiture and fines, and potentially jail time there.
* This is the opening salvo in negotiations with Manafort/Gates. They probably know things that would be useful to the investigation. They can either help the investigation or face this indictment.
when scam perpetrators and con artists get indicted, reasonable people stay away from them or their future endeavors. Trump/Manafort for me is the best indication that the political campaign was full of shady business.
This guy had his fingers in a lot of pies. Ukraine, Angolan rebels, Somalia. He was also advising Reagan, GW Bush and Bob Dole's campaigns.
Good thing they got him. Less corruption the better.