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> Paul Manafort, the chairman of Donald Trumps' 2016 campaign is currently serving a 7.5 year prison sentence relating to this investigation. "He was convicted

> Paul Manafort, the chairman of Donald Trumps' 2016 campaign is currently serving a 7.5 year prison sentence relating to this investigation. "He was convicted on five counts of tax fraud, one of the four counts of failing to disclose his foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud." So, he was convicted of tax fraud and bureaucratic discrepencies. While factually related to the investigation, none of these charges has nothing to do with what the investigation was about.

newacct583 6y ago
I don't know the source you're quoting, but it's pure spin. The tax fraud and reporting violation were in direct service to the need to hide his foreign payments from Russian interests. You're also forgetting his guilty pleas for failing to register as a foreign agent (Russia again) and witness tampering (which is criminal obstruction of justice!). This is all directly related to his work for Russia and Russian interests, in exactly the same way that Al Capone's famous tax evasion conviction was the result of his operation of a criminal organization.
- llcoolv 6y ago
  Apologies, the source is wikipedia's page on Paul Manafort[1]. Also the article says he was involved with Yanukovich, not with Putin, but still in the worst case this is in the equivalent to the Biden-Poroshenko tape[2]. Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you were ever accused of is not really sound logic. Also, I am not really defending Manaford - tbh after reading more on him, this whole Ukrainian foray seems to be one of his lesser offenses. But for example in the case of Flynn/Trump where prosecutors were taped discussing how they need to "find him guilty of anything or provoke him to cross the law", there is no doubt of bias. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA3oOo1oZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA3oOo1oZc
  - newacct583 6y ago
    > Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you were ever accused of is not really sound logic. The contention above was that there was "literally nothing to" Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort's convictions for activities related to his attempts to hide his Russian influence is clear evidence to the contrary. I don't see anyone saying this makes Manafort guilty of "all the bad things he was ever accused of". But it makes him guilty of hiding Russian influence in the 2016 election, which was the point to be demonstrated.
    - llcoolv 6y ago
      How could they be related to something that did not stand in court, in other words did not legally happen? This is quite the contradiction.
mytherin 6y ago
Interesting, didn't know about that. Thanks for the info. Then perhaps you can give me some more clarification: * What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-Trump social media accounts? * What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and strategic release of those emails right before the election (even though the e-mails ended up containing nothing incriminating)? * What about the many people lying/obstructing justice that were investigated? Why were so many people caught lying if there was nothing to hide? Honestly curious, I'm not from the US so I don't have a horse in the race and I don't know that much about the investigation, but it seems to be quite obvious something fishy is going on there. Whether or not Trump's team was personally involved is another matter, but it seems obvious Russia meddled in the election extensively to assist Trump in winning. That alone seems quite alarming to me. It also feels like you are defending it primarily because it happened to someone on your team, and you would not be defending it if the situation were reversed and, say, Clinton was assisted by China or something like this, even if she had no part to play in the assistance.
- llcoolv 6y ago
  * What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-Trump social media accounts? Until there is no hard evidence, those troll farms are conspiracy theories. Besides, these days the left press is so ridiculously biased that NYT, Guardian, etc could easily qualify as troll farms. * What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and strategic release of those emails right before the election (even though the e-mails ended up containing nothing incriminating)? You mean the "e-mail server" (lol) which was "hosted" at her bedroom? You do realise that here of all places there is probably the highest number of people to see how ridiculous this is. * What about the many people lying/obstructing justice that were investigated? Why were so many people caught lying if there was nothing to hide? There is always something to hide, the question is were they guilty of what they were accused or not. Also after this appeared: 'What is our goal?' one of the notes dated January 24 2017 - the day of the interview - read. 'Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?' I would not give too much credibility to those investigators. 1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271953/Unsealed-memos-FBI-planned-Michael-Flynn-lie-prosecute-fired.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271953/Unsealed-me...

newacct583 6y ago

I don't know the source you're quoting, but it's pure spin. The tax fraud and reporting violation were in direct service to the need to hide his foreign payments from Russian interests. You're also forgetting his guilty pleas for failing to register as a foreign agent (Russia again) and witness tampering (which is criminal obstruction of justice!). This is all directly related to his work for Russia and Russian interests, in exactly the same way that Al Capone's famous tax evasion conviction was the result of his operation of a criminal organization.

llcoolv 6y ago
Apologies, the source is wikipedia's page on Paul Manafort[1]. Also the article says he was involved with Yanukovich, not with Putin, but still in the worst case this is in the equivalent to the Biden-Poroshenko tape[2]. Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you were ever accused of is not really sound logic. Also, I am not really defending Manaford - tbh after reading more on him, this whole Ukrainian foray seems to be one of his lesser offenses. But for example in the case of Flynn/Trump where prosecutors were taped discussing how they need to "find him guilty of anything or provoke him to cross the law", there is no doubt of bias. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA3oOo1oZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA3oOo1oZc
- newacct583 6y ago
  > Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you were ever accused of is not really sound logic. The contention above was that there was "literally nothing to" Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort's convictions for activities related to his attempts to hide his Russian influence is clear evidence to the contrary. I don't see anyone saying this makes Manafort guilty of "all the bad things he was ever accused of". But it makes him guilty of hiding Russian influence in the 2016 election, which was the point to be demonstrated.
  - llcoolv 6y ago
    How could they be related to something that did not stand in court, in other words did not legally happen? This is quite the contradiction.

mytherin 6y ago

Interesting, didn't know about that. Thanks for the info. Then perhaps you can give me some more clarification: * What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-Trump social media accounts? * What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and strategic release of those emails right before the election (even though the e-mails ended up containing nothing incriminating)? * What about the many people lying/obstructing justice that were investigated? Why were so many people caught lying if there was nothing to hide? Honestly curious, I'm not from the US so I don't have a horse in the race and I don't know that much about the investigation, but it seems to be quite obvious something fishy is going on there. Whether or not Trump's team was personally involved is another matter, but it seems obvious Russia meddled in the election extensively to assist Trump in winning. That alone seems quite alarming to me. It also feels like you are defending it primarily because it happened to someone on your team, and you would not be defending it if the situation were reversed and, say, Clinton was assisted by China or something like this, even if she had no part to play in the assistance.

llcoolv 6y ago
* What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-Trump social media accounts? Until there is no hard evidence, those troll farms are conspiracy theories. Besides, these days the left press is so ridiculously biased that NYT, Guardian, etc could easily qualify as troll farms. * What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and strategic release of those emails right before the election (even though the e-mails ended up containing nothing incriminating)? You mean the "e-mail server" (lol) which was "hosted" at her bedroom? You do realise that here of all places there is probably the highest number of people to see how ridiculous this is. * What about the many people lying/obstructing justice that were investigated? Why were so many people caught lying if there was nothing to hide? There is always something to hide, the question is were they guilty of what they were accused or not. Also after this appeared: 'What is our goal?' one of the notes dated January 24 2017 - the day of the interview - read. 'Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?' I would not give too much credibility to those investigators. 1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271953/Unsealed-memos-FBI-planned-Michael-Flynn-lie-prosecute-fired.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271953/Unsealed-me...