Manafort Left Paper Trail Because He Couldn't Figure Out How to Convert PDFs to Word Files

[ehrnst]

There are two types of people in this world: those who know how to convert PDFs into Word documents and those who are indicted for money laundering. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is the second kind of person.

Back in October, a grand jury indictment charged Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates with a variety of crimes, including conspiring “to defraud the United States.” On Thursday, special counsel Robert Mueller filed a new indictment against the pair, substantially expanding the charges. As one former federal prosecutor told the Washington Post, Manafort and Gates’ methods appear to have been “extensive and bold and greedy with a capital ‘G,’ but … not all that sophisticated.”

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So here’s the essence of what went wrong for Manafort and Gates, according to Mueller’s investigation: Manafort allegedly wanted to falsify his company’s income, but he couldn’t figure out how to edit the PDF. He therefore had Gates turn it into a Microsoft Word document for him, which led the two to bounce the documents back-and-forth over email. As attorney and blogger Susan Simpson notes on Twitter, Manafort’s inability to complete a basic task on his own seems to have effectively “created an incriminating paper trail.”

https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/paul-manafort-couldnt-convert-pdfs-to-word-documents.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

[Docreed2003]

1. Brilliant...lol

[lapfog_1]

2. purchase acrobat ( not illegal)

Open a file in Acrobat.
Click on the Export PDF tool in the right pane.
Choose Microsoft Word as your export format, and then choose Word Document.
Click Export. ...
Name the Word file and save it in a desired location.

all legal with no email trail.

perform illegal edit

publish as .pdf

destroy computer and disk drive

nobody else involved

[PJMcK]

3. This is just too funny!

Relatedly, the one thing Trump has done wisely is to never use a computer. He has never written or received an email, (since he doesn't have an account). Accordingly, there's nothing that links to him. This is probably why he talks with people one-on-one when he wants to pressure them, mob-style.

Hope Hicks, on the other hand, probably has a lot of interesting emails and text messages the Robert Mueller has read or will read.

[ehrnst]

5. Yep. And interestingly Pence doesn't show up on emails about the transition he "ran."

I'm betting they don't know that BCC can be read by going into the server....

[Lucinda]

4. ...

[eppur_se_muova]

6. "We're going to get lots of really good people -- the best !"

45 bragged about it, but only Mueller actually did it.