The Plot

In the Mar 2018, The Atlantic will publish an outstanding, deeply researched article about Donald Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort, who recently was indicted on multiple federal criminal charges and currently is under house arrest awaiting trial later this year (link here). The piece is titled "The Plot Against America," borrowing from Philip Roth's novel of the same name about a fictional and fascist US President.

I knew Manafort was a shady character with no moral compass before I read the article, yet the picture writer Franklin Foer paints is of an individual who would do pretty much anything as long as he was well paid, a reputation widely known in Republican circles and certainly by some of Trump's closest friends.

The fact that Trump would pick such a profoundly corrupt individual to run his campaign is all the more troubling and speaks of his own decayed sense of decency and honesty. Manafort has had a long and well documented history of illegal activities, and Trump just pretended he knew nothing about his past when he knew in great detail the sort of secrets the man was hiding.

Trump bragged repeatedly during the campaign he only picked "the best people" to work for him. So when he knowingly hired a man who was virtually otherwise unemployable, he revealed he actually meant "the best people to commit crimes."