Paul Manafort, we hardly knew ye

As the television show The X-Files used to say, “The truth is out there.” We are perhaps learning why Donald J. Trump and his team really hit the extreme panic button this past weekend. Reports are emerging that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team have accused Paul Manafort of witness tampering. The New York Times and other outlets are reporting that Mueller’s office submitted a filing on Monday in the District Court for the District of Columbia asking that the judge revoke Manafort’s release ahead of the trial scheduled for July 2018.

Reuters reported that Mueller’s brief addressed the following:
 “FBI Special Agent Brock Domin, in a declaration filed with Mueller’s motion, said Manafort had attempted to call, text and send encrypted messages in February to two people from ‘The Hapsburg Group,’ a firm he worked with to promote the interests of Ukraine.”

This latest filing, if true, continues to put Manafort into a very difficult legal position. The United States Code is harsh on witness tampering in criminal matters, providing in 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(b):

(b)Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to—

(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
…shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Manafort’s attorneys have requested a hearing about whether his release should be revoked. With this latest news, it might give us a reason why Trump seems so panicked: his close advisor Manafort (despite Trump over the weekend trying to suggest that Manafort is his latest version of the “errand boy” or “coffee boy”) who goes back with him thirty plus years may be getting to the point where he must decide if he will trade “up the ladder” or face prison for an extended period of years.