Manafort Reportedly In Talks With Mueller For Plea Deal. Will He Flip On Trump?

Paul Manafort is running out of options, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller is using that to his advantage.
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by: Ahmed Baba on September 11, 2018

Created By Rantt Media Production Designer Maddie Anderson

Created By Rantt Media Production Designer Maddie Anderson

The Rantt Rundown: Day 600 of the Trump presidency

The Lede: The Washington Post reported that Trump’s former Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort has renewed talks with Special Counsel Robert Mueller about a possible plea deal. This comes after The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Paul Manafort held talks with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team seeking a plea deal while the jury was deliberating in his Virginia trial, ahead of his upcoming trial in Washington DC. The talks didn’t continue over concerns that Mueller broached. Those concerns have yet to be publicly revealed. It appears they’re back on. This presents further evidence that Manafort might be showing a willingness to cooperate with prosecutors.

The Context:  Manafort was found guilty on 8 counts (5 tax fraud, 2 bank fraud, and 1 of hiding foreign accounts), with verdicts unable to be reached for the remaining 10 counts. Manafort is 69 years old and faces up to 80 years in prison for these convictions. Judge Ellis, who has faced allegations of bias in this trial, declared a mistrial on those 10 counts after the jurors couldn’t come to a consensus. Manafort faces another trial in DC on September 24.

Manafort is the fifth Trump associate to be convicted of felony charges during the Trump presidency. Trump’s former personal lawyer/fixer (and RNC deputy finance chair) Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to 8 counts that include bank fraud, tax fraud, and campaign finance violations just today. They join former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, and former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who all pleaded guilty to felony charges.

The Analysis: One of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s objectives in his investigation has long been to flip Paul Manafort into a cooperating witness. But many have speculated that Manafort has not cooperated because he awaits a Trump pardon. President Trump has recently said very positive things about Manafort, raising the speculation of that possibility. Clearly, if Manafort flipped, it would be of great benefit to Robert Mueller’s investigation and great detriment to Donald Trump. Manafort’s involvement in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, role in adding pro-Russia policies to the Republican platform, and his contacts with Russian operatives are of interest to Mueller. Not to mention the report that Manafort offered “private briefings” on the state of the 2016 election to Russian Oligarch, and close Putin ally, Oleg Deripaska. Paul Manafort’s choice appears to be to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, await a potential pardon from Trump for his federal crimes, or spend the rest of his life in prison. We’ll see what Manafort chooses.

In other news…

Rundown // Donald Trump / Paul Manafort / Robert Mueller / Russia Investigation
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by: Ahmed Baba

Ahmed Baba is the Co-Founder and President of Rantt. Writer of Unpresidented, Ahmed documented and analyzed every day of the Trump presidency. He's also a columnist at The Independent and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Blavity, Newsweek, The Telegraph, and more. He can be reached at [email protected] or found on Twitter @AhmedBaba_.

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