I am posting another recapâŚreviewing again (and again) all the nuances of the 3 briefs that were filed. We know these can have devastating effects of the president. Hereâs howâŚ
The documents were stunning, even for 2018.
In brief No. 1, Special Counsel Robert Muellerâs office argues that Paul Manafort breached his cooperation agreement with the government by lying to the FBI and the Special Counselâs Office in the course of 12 meetings. The brief oozes a level of confidence notable even among professionally hubristic prosecutors: Mueller says heâs ready to present witnesses and documents, and that he gave Manafortâs lawyers an opportunity to refute the evidence but they could not. Mueller is sure he has the receipts.
According to the brief, Manafort lied about his communications with the reputed Russian intelligence agent Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Mueller has scrutinized as a possible conduit between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Although Muellerâs brief is heavily redacted, itâs clear that Manafort minimized the frequency, duration, and subject of his meetings with Kilimnik. Mueller has emails contradicting Manafortâs description of those meetings, whichâwe can infer from the unredacted snippetsârelated to the Trump campaignâs interactions with Russian interests. Mueller also asserts that Manafort lied about some of the payments he received and about an investigation in another districtâpossibly, based on the context, the Southern District of New York investigation of Michael Cohen and the president. Finally, and of great concern to the White House, Mueller claims that Manafort lied about his contacts with the Trump administration before his guilty plea, and that text messages, documents, and witnesses prove that he was in contact with administration officials.
Michael Cohen exits federal court after entering a guilty plea on November 29, 2018.
In brief No. 2, the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Southern District of New York asks a federal judge to sentence the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to a âsubstantial term of imprisonmentââmeaning between three and four years. Last week, Cohenâs lawyers filed a brief lauding their clientâs cooperation with the Special Counselâs Office, the Southern District of New York, and the New York attorney general, downplaying the significance of his crimes and asking the court to sentence Cohen to probation. Such gambits are tricky: Defense lawyers must thread the needle between praising their clientâs cooperation and seeking leniency enough to sway the judge, but not doing this so effusively that they trigger a prosecutorial rebuttal. Here, Cohenâs lawyersâ pirouette turned into a disastrous face-plant.
The prosecutorsâ rebuttal of Cohenâs sentencing brief is one of the more livid denunciations Iâve seen in more than two decades of federal criminal practice. The Southern District concedes that Cohen provided some information to it, to the special counsel, and to the New York attorney general. But Cohen refused to cooperate fully; he declined to engage in a full debriefing about everything he knew or to commit to ongoing meetings, and he only spilled about the things heâd already admitted in his plea. Thatâs not how cooperation works. In this game, you either cooperate fully or you shut up; there is no middle ground. Itâs not surprising that Cohenâs stance angered the notoriously proud Southern District prosecutors.
The New York prosecutors blast Cohenâs ârose-colored view of the seriousness of his crimes,â accusing him of a âpattern of deception that permeated his professional life.â Prosecutors portray Cohen as stubbornly obstructing his own accountant to cheat at taxes, even refusing to pay for accounting work that raised inconvenient issues he wanted suppressed. When it comes to Cohenâs campaign-finance violations, the prosecutorsâ fury leaps off the page. Cohen, they say, schemed to pay for two womenâs stories (Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, we now know) in violation of campaign-finance laws in order to influence the 2016 election, and did so âin coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1ââthat is, the president of the United States. As the brief puts it:
While many Americans who desired a particular outcome to the election knocked on doors, toiled at phone banks, or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows. He did so by orchestrating secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise would have made public their alleged extramarital affairs with Individual-1. In the process, Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election.
If the Southern Districtâs fury at Cohen is notable, its explicit accusation that President Trump directed and coordinated campaign-finance violations is simply stunning. The prosecutorsâ openness suggests that they are sure of their evidence and have mostly finished collecting it. Itâs a sign of a fully developed, late-game investigation of the presidentâs role, one that may soon make its way to Congress.
And that brings us to brief No. 3: Special Counsel Muellerâs separate sentencing brief in Cohenâs lying-to-Congress case. He does not recommend a sentence but informs the court about the nature of Cohenâs assistance to his office. Mueller discloses that Cohen has âtaken significant steps to mitigate his criminal conductâ by pleading guilty to lying to Congress and meeting with the special counsel seven times to discuss his own conduct and other âcore topics under investigation.â That includes information about multiple cases of contact between other Trump-campaign officials and the Russian government, and about Cohenâs contact with the White House in 2017 and 2018, suggesting an ongoing inquiry into obstruction of justice. Most significant, the special counsel indicates that Cohen âdescribed the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries, while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements within it.â That statement suggests that the special counsel believes that someone in the Trump administration knew of, and approved in advance, Cohenâs lies to Congress. Thatâs explosive, and potentially impeachable if Trump himself is implicated.
The president said on Twitter that Fridayâs news âtotally clears the President. Thank you!â It does not. Manafort and Cohen are in trouble, and so is Trump. The special counselâs confidence in his ability to prove Manafort a liar appears justified, which leaves Manafort facing what amounts to a life sentence without any cooperation credit. The Southern Districtâs brief suggests that Cohenâs dreams of probation are not likely to come true. All three briefs show the special counsel and the Southern District closing in on President Trump and his administration. Theyâre looking into campaign contact with Russia, campaign-finance fraud in connection with paying off an adult actress, and participation in lying to Congress. A Democratic House of Representatives, just days away, strains at the leash to help. The gameâs afoot.
) is that K is a spyâŚIs Manafort then one tooâŚ??
âŚBUT my analytic side recalls that this could be considered âwitness tamperingâ on Tâs part, and therefore obstruction of justice.
