Manafort at the "heart" of the Russia investigation?

[kentuck]

That seemed to be the main topic of discussion in yesterday's news?

Even while he was in jail, he was still working with his allies in the Ukraine. He was giving campaign information to his Russian comrades. He was in attendance at the Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr, Jared Kushner, and various Russians. He was the Campaign Chairman when someone changed the Republican platform at their Convention in Cleveland?

He continued to lie to the Special Counsel, after he made his plea deal, and was charged with witness tampering after he was arrested.

And he had a special relationship with a consultant named Kilimnik, thought to be linked to Russian intelligence?

The "collusion" theory now seems to be tied to Manafort and his efforts to ease the sanctions on Russia and to end the conflict that followed the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Manafort was in the game to make money and to "get right" with his Russian debtors.

The question remaining is: What did Donald Trump know and when did he know it? And what was the quid pro quo?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/10/us/politics/manafort-mueller-russia-inquiry.html

[Achilleaze]

1. The poor, unwitting republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief must have been...

...suckered by Manafort into all this evil treason. Surely no one could imagine that the republican family-values role model would lie, or cheat, or betray America. Heaven forbid.

[tanyev]

2. Well, when someone just appears and offers to be your campaign manager free of charge

there's bound to be something going on. And while a raging narcissist like Trump probably does believe people are lining up just for the privilege of doing things for him, he's also had more than enough dealings with corrupt Russians to know what the offer entailed.

[mr_lebowski]

3. I've always thought there's a real chance this whole thing just gets pinned on Manafort

And to be honest, to the extent there was an actual architect (in the US), he's a pretty logical person to suspect.

The fact that it made basically a tiny blip when Ghouliani came straight out and said 'we never said the CAMPAIGN didn't collude, just that the POTUS didn't' ... tells you the Media is not planning on making a big deal out of the whole thing unless there's proof Trump HIMSELF was directly involved.

Which is RIDICULOUS, this was Trump campaign chair for over 100 days in the thick of the summer leading up to the Election. Gingrich went on the news and said Manafort turned the campaign around, had done SO MUCH to help, etc.

If this were a Dem they'd NEVER get off the hook for hiring this guy and letting him do what he did. They'd hold a Dem Prez FULLY accountable, esp. when they said "I love Wikileaks" over and over, and asked the Russians to hack his opponents computer system publicly ... AND THEN THEY IMMEDIATELY TRIED TO. AND they clearly tried to receive 'dirt' about their opponent from agents of a foreign government.

If it were a Dem, these stories would still be all over the news, the GOP congresspeople and Senators would be raising holy hell in front of live microphones all day screaming for impeachment. We'd STILL be hearing about the TREASON of Helsinki, I PROMISE you that.

But Trump will skate, just like he (and the Traitorous GOP) always fucking does.