15 September 2018

The Big Flip

Yesterday, Donald Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort pled guilty to felony charges and agreed to cooperate with Robert Mueller, who leads the criminal investigation into the President and his circle (details here).

Make no mistake about it, this is one of the biggest developments in the Trump/Russia scandal and potentially fatal for Trump's presidency.

Manafort knows a lot about something. Otherwise, Mueller would not have offered him such a sweet plea deal.

The big burning question then is -- what does Manafort know?

Paul Waldman at the Washington Post (link here) outlines the most logical scenarios:

1. Manafort has information about crimes, but they are unrelated to Trump or his campaign. This means he has major information about Russian nationals who can prosecuted in the United States and/or affiliated individuals in the United States. This is an interesting possibility but would not touch Trump, so a disappointment on that front.

2. Manafort has information about crimes within the Trump administration but not involving the President himself. For instance, he could have damaging testimony about Trump's son, son-in-law, and/or the Attorney General. Now we're getting somewhere.

3. Manafort has damaging information about criminality involving the President himself. Oh boy. That would be a dream come true. Trump would fall worse than Richard Nixon.

Not mentioned by Waldman would be a sweepstakes trifecta: all of the above. We can only hope. Stay tuned.

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