Trump will always lie. He will always throw you under the bus. He will always shift the blame. He will always promise you everything and leave you hanging.
Paul Manafort got off easy — and he may still die in prison. Thursday’s penalty, though lighter than expected, is still likely a death sentence, especially with a second sentence to come.
For all of America’s colorful history, you can’t say many presidential campaign managers or shady pillars of Washington’s perpetual lobbying swamp ended up with a 47-month sentence, below the 19 years or more than sentencing guidelines recommended as the judge (who apparently has never heard of “The Google”) took into consideration Manafort’s heretofore “blameless” life.
Manafort’s life—which had been anything but blameless—is nonetheless over. He faces more sentencing in his D.C. trial next week, with a recommendation there of up to 10 more years. He may never see more than a patch of daylight in the prison yard until he is carried out feet-first and buried in a potter’s field.
If anyone ever tempted the fates in our political ecosystem, it was Manafort. He lived a life of opulence bordering on the decadent, fueled by a career made by serving the worst authoritarians, dictators, warlords, and shit-tier human rights abusers he could scrape out of the gutter to monetize. His bygone days as a mainstream Republican consultant were far in the rearview mirror when Donald Trump tapped his old friend Paul Manafort to run his 2016 campaign.
I wonder what Manafort thought when Trump called on him. At that point, Pasha Manafort was in hock up to his eyeballs to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and had lost his primary client, the lavishly kleptocratic Putin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. He owed the Russians millions of dollars, and Oleg and his friends tend to collect with either kinetic action or sudden doses of poison. It was no wonder that Manafort turned over the Trump campaign’s platform over to the Russians, and fed polling data to former (and by former, I mean, forever) GRU officer Konstantin Kilimnik. Manafort was desperate to please his Russian masters.
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Manafort, of course, follows the inevitable Everything Trump Touches Dies arc. In the beginning, Trump and his supporters showered Manafort with the most lavish praise as a political genius, a man of great depth, understanding, and stature. He was a legend come to aid the Trump effort, a sign of the campaign’s maturation and growing strength. Now, he’s deep into the familiar process of Trumpian unpersoning. “We hardly knew him. He only served a short time. He was a coffee boy. He was ideologically impure. He was a criminal scumbag who tricked us. He betrayed the Great Leader.” Every major player in Trump’s world experiences this treatment.
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They keep forgetting that the special counsel, U.S. attorneys, and the federal courts have a high standard of truth than Fox & Friends, Breitbart, or debased and degraded formerly conservative media outlets. Robert Mueller doesn’t give a damn how many retweets Trump’s lies get, or how many comments or donations Roger Stone latest grifting Instagram posts receive.
They care about justice, the rule of law, the facts, and the truth. The truth may not always have an advantage in politics, but it most certainly does in the courts and the hands of this special counsel.
Paul Manafort is also a valuable preview of the future for people like Roger Stone. Stone has tried to play the same too-cute game with the special counsel and Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Now, the septuagenarian libertine faces his own time in the barrel. Stone won’t prosper in a place where the most dapper element of his outfit is a scratchy orange polyester jumpsuit.
For those of you facing indictment, including those are you in the Trump orbit who know what’s coming but haven’t yet heard the knock of the US Marshals on your door, here’s a helpful reminder: Trump will always lie. He will always throw you under the bus. He will always shift the blame. He will always promise you everything and leave you hanging.
Think of a single time you’ve ever seen Trump stand up for someone in trouble for their work for him. You can’t. Do you think Trump believes in any joint defense agreement or will raise money for your legal defense? Do you think Trump is going to offer you a pardon to save you from death behind bars? Get a grip.
You worked for a conman, a fraud, a serial adulterer, a man comfortable in the presence of criminals, and someone who displays every single worst aspect of humanity. Trump will do everything it takes to preserve his power, image, and money. He will burn the entire Republican party—and likely the nation— to the ground to save himself. Enjoy the free government health care in prison.
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Ah yes the cool calming words or @TheRickWilson make the morning coffee taste better.
https://t.co/m1KiNvv8Lp— 3rdkneeblog (@AvroArrowflys) March 8, 2019
I've had two separate DC criminal practice types say this is his style, both of whom are, to put it mildly, not Trump fans. https://t.co/FXsOM4DPdl
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) March 8, 2019
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