The crimes Manafort and Cohen committed have nothing to do with Trump. I don’t think Trump should or will pardon Manafort. Manafort has been dirty since the phony dossier was first written in 2007
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117674837248471543
How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington
GLENN R. SIMPSON AND MARY JACOBY
APRIL 17, 2007
Paul Manafort, a former adviser to Mr. Dole’s presidential campaign, has advised a Ukrainian metals billionaire and his close political ally, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. Mr. Yanukovich, who favors closer ties with Mr. Putin’s administration, is embroiled in a power struggle with pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
In some cases, the details of how these ex-Soviet clients made their fortunes are murky — and the source, amount and purpose of the fees they pay Washington consultants can be as well. In 2005, for example, Ukrainian politician Yuri Boyko used a Caribbean shell company to pay a Washington lobbyist for help arranging meetings with top Republicans.
Getting back to this issue of Manafort and Cohen, the point is not that they didn’t have issues in their past. The point is that they were on nobody’s radar and would not in a million years have been the subject of criminal investigations except for the fact that they chose to work for the man who became President of the United States. Going after them is not a matter of justice, it is part of an attack on the President and the people who voted for him. Had the Mule stumbled across Manafort but he had never had anything to do with Trump, only worked with Podesta, Mule would not have though twice about him. Same with Cohen. With Manafort, Justice had previously looked at everything the Mule had, and passed on it!
The deserve pardons, or at least, commutation of their sentences. Not just for them, but for the President to signal to his enemies that their game will not work.
I can’t understand why people are so cavalier about what was done to these people. They are saints compared to most DC people. They don’t like little boys, like Hastart, they weren’t bribed, like AOC, Pelosi, Feinstein, Hillary and 2/3 of DC,t they don’t commit treason against their country. Trump’s universe of people who will work for him in the future is reduced by 3/4, until he fixes this corruption of the system.
Give me the man, and I will find the crime, said Beria. These were men who were targeted without any actual evidence they had done anything, and then the crimes were found. That’s not how we do it.