Jake
Two piping hot memos were just filed, courtesy of the Mueller investigation, about central figures who helped and hindered the probe into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. One of them was the Southern District of New York’s sentencing guidelines for Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen. The other was Mueller’s (heavily redacted) memo detailing Trump’s former campaign manager’s lies to the Special Counsel’s Office in violation of his cooperation agreement.
The big headline out of the Cohen filing is that the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia seems to have (almost) pre-dated the Trump campaign’s existence. Michael Cohen told investigators that Trump directed him to reach out to Russian government officials as early as 2015.
“During his proffer sessions, the defendant admitted … he had in fact conferred with Individual 1 about contacting the Russian government before reaching out to gauge Russia’s interest in such a meeting [with Putin in 2015].” That’s just after Trump declared, btw.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 7, 2018
NEWS: Collusion? Michael Cohen told Mueller about being approached in 2015 by a “trusted” person in the Russian federation who offered “synergy” with Trump’s campaign pic.twitter.com/8FTPG2qWMm
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) December 7, 2018
This is Mueller stating that there was “collusion” about which Cohen offered some insight. https://t.co/G5RY3AW4Ey
— Jeff Hauser (@jeffhauser) December 7, 2018
Also, as Cohen previously indicated, Trump (or “Individual-1” as he’s referred to in the brief) directed him to commit campaign finance crimes in the course of covering up Trump’s affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
SDNY sentencing memo makes clear: @realDonaldTrump directed Cohen to commit a crime. pic.twitter.com/WV1SgH5vGH
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 7, 2018
The Justice Department: The President of the United States violated campaign finance law by directing his attorney to bribe women to keep quiet about their affairs with him. pic.twitter.com/wx9LkoSFv7
— Judah Maccabeets🍝 (@AdamSerwer) December 7, 2018
This contradicts the slapdash bullsh*t Giuliani was peddling on Fox News during one of his many half-cocked appearances:
— Brendan Karet 🚮 (@bad_takes) December 7, 2018
The big headline out of the Manafort filing is that Trump’s former campaign chairman has been in contact with White House officials as recently as May of 2018, and lied about it. Mueller knows because he’s got the receipts.
Another big one:
Mueller has text messages that shows Manafort’s interactions with Trump officials including one who is a “senior administration official,” through February of this year and in May 2018.
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) December 7, 2018
Even redacted, the Manafort filing looks awfully damning. The SCO is basically claiming that, for all the lies they allege, Manafort essentially either fessed up when confronted with evidence, or they’ve got what sounds like pretty ironclad proof.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 7, 2018
The big megilla… pic.twitter.com/AV3E9h3gTo
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) December 7, 2018
According to Mueller’s filing, Manafort told “multiple discernible lies―these were not instances of mere memory lapses.” Whoops! Manafort breached his cooperation agreement by not only lying, but also by filling Trump’s defense team in on what the Special Counsel was up to, which is obviously, uh, “frowned upon.” All of this certainly suggests Manafort’s actions constitute a Hail Mary attempt at some sort of pardon for the federal crimes (he’s ineligible for a presidential pardon for state crimes, of which there are many). Trump has talked openly of pardoning Manafort in the past.