Posted on 07/17/2018 12:45:31 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Attorneys working with the Office of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Tuesday submitted a request for immunity for up to five witnesses his team have asked to testify against Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump campaign.
Mueller made the request in a court filing Tuesday afternoon, which also requests that the identity of the potential witnesses remain under seal. According to the filing, the potential witnesses have yet to be publicly identified with the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia, and the office wishes to shield them from "undue harassment."
"The five individuals identified in the motions at issue are third parties who have not been charged in this matter, and who have not been identified publicly with the case," the filing reads.
"Disclosing the motions would reveal those individuals involvement in the investigation and the trial, thereby creating the risk of their undue harassment," it continues.
Manafort is charged with money laundering and lobbying violations related to his work for pro-Russia parties in Ukraine prior to joining the Trump campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing and plead not guilty last year, but a former business associate, Rick Gates, plead guilty to similar charges earlier this year.
The former top Trump aide was ordered to jail last month by a federal judge for violating the terms of his bail agreement by allegedly attempting to tamper with a witness. His trial in Virginia is scheduled for July 24, and he is set to defend himself in September against charges filed in Washington, D.C.
News of the witnesses planning to testify against Manafort comes just a day after President Trump seemed to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin against the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf.
This is way off what he is supposed to be doing or ,as the Federal District Judge in Virginia said “ Is he trying to construct testimony from the defendant” i,e suborn Perjury. No body cares about a supposed violation of a 2006 registration that nobody ever did. Trump will pardon him for sure. This is straight gestapo crap.
Never let a good crisis go to waste. Use it grant Immunity to deep state crooks.
I thought you got immunity because you are the guilty small fish helping take down the big fish. Is Manafort somehow now a big fish? and what that hell are is Mueller doing letting five guilty parties cop a plea? Sounds way more like collusion to falsely indict.
I’m looking forward to someday hearing people testify against MUELLER.
from Wikipedia article on “Show Trials”
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.
Show trials were a significant part of Joseph Stalin’s regime. The Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period (193738) in the Soviet Union are characteristic.
The authorities staged the actual trials meticulously. If defendants refused to “cooperate”i.e., to admit guilt for their alleged and mostly fabricated crimesthey did not go on public trial, but suffered execution nonetheless.
Solid public evidence of what really happened during the Moscow Trials came to the West through the Dewey Commission (1937). After the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), more information became available. This discredited the New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, who claimed at the time that these trials were actually fair.
Made up crap, too, is my guess.
Star Chamber.
I thought Mueller was handing this off to SDNY?
Lemme guess: 1) Hillary Clinton, 2) Huma Abedin, 3) William Jefferson Clinton, 4) Chelsea Clinton, 5) Barack Hussein Obama.
Podesta...
"May it please the court, the Special Counsel hereby notifies the court that we intend to call as witnesses Barack H. Obama, Hillary R. Clinton, William J. Clinton, Loretta E. Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, all of which have been granted full and complete immunity for any and all crimes which may have been committed during their lives."
The Right to Cross-Examine
I thought Manafort was already deep fried.
Why let five people walk to put a person already likely to serve big time away longer?
I wonder if the Podestas and their associates are looking for immunity? Wouldn’t that just frost us or what?
Exactly. Those are the kinds of games we expect will be played.
Despicable.
Yeah, that won't seem obvious.
This is how the Democrats involved in this such as Podesta will get away with it.
“The right to be confronted by your accused. This POS continues to operate as if he is running the star chamber.”
Manafort will get the right to confront his accusers in a court of law during his trial. One might assume from Mueller’s immunity request the accusers have committed crimes and will be protected from prosecution in return for ratting out Manafort.
Will Manafort’s attorneys be able to advise the jury of immunity deal so the jurors can deliberate as to if the testimony of those accusers is tainted? Certainly Mueller will use every legal maneuver at his disposal to convince the judge to deny the defense the ability to bring this potential salient fact to the jury. Given the judge has already imprisoned Manafort in solitary confinement prior to trial, one can assume the judge already has a heavy hand on the scales of justice not favoring the defendant.
If the judge decides the plea deal cannot be used by the defense to impugn the witnesses against Manafort, will Manfort have grounds for appeal? Potentially but the cost of an appeal will be astronomical and Manafort may not have the means to fund an appeal. Likely Mueller will try to convince a DC jury to heavily fine Manafort, in addition to giving him a stiff prison sentence. Bankrupting Manafort in the first trial helps to ensure there will be no appeal. In filing an appeal Manafort will have the additional hurdle of convincing a higher court, with many Democrat judges to agree there are grounds to retry the case. Depending on the politics of the appeals court, that may be an impossible hurdle for Manafort to overcome.
Given that Manafort is now in solitary confinement, even though he is not a flight risk, is evidence the due process protections of the Constitution have been thrown out the window by the federal court trying him. The Manafort show trial is likely to be a circus Vladimir Putin could admire. Liberal totalitarian court, tyrannical prosecutor, rabid propaganda machine, a jury of “peers” drawn from District of Columbia citizens who are strongly anti Trump.
Manafort currently has much to think about in his cell while waiting trial. He can agree to do what Mueller wants and get a plea deal (low fine and possibly suspended jail time) or he can go forward with a trial knowing federal prosecutors win these type of case 95%+, even when it isn’t a political show trial. Remember Scooter Libby! If he loses in trial he will face a long, potentially lifetime, prison term and be ruined financially. There will be no Soros or ACLU to fund his appeal.
So far Manafort is hanging tough. Why?
The Dems yelled when Pres. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio but this clown can pardon anyone he want to no matter what they did?????
Mueller found out a little bit about what Putin told Trump, eh?
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