Paul Manafort is negotiating a plea deal against Donald Trump after all
Earlier today, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos walked into his sentencing hearing and accused Donald Trump of felony obstruction of justice, and the judge promptly handed him a mere fourteen day prison sentence instead of the recommended six months. This set a precedent that anyone who sells out Trump thoroughly enough may be able to get a much lighter sentence. Not surprisingly, news is already surfacing that Paul Manafort is indeed negotiating a plea deal as we speak.
It was previously reported that Paul Manafort had approached Special Counsel Robert Mueller about a plea deal during his first trial, and that Mueller wasn’t willing to give him the leniency he was seeking. But now Manafort is indeed working on a plea deal with Mueller, this time for real, according to a new report from Bloomberg tonight. So how does this change things?
This new report does not mean a deal is guaranteed to happen, as these things can break down at pretty much any point prior to the proffer session, after which a deal more or less becomes inevitable. But it is crucial that Manafort is back at the bargaining table, and the timing can’t be ignored. George Papadopoulos was set to get six months, and as best anyone can tell, the judge only went easy on him because he had his legal team try the last minute strategy of fully throwing Trump under the bus.
To be as clear as possible, Robert Mueller now holds all the cards against Paul Manafort, including eight existing felony convictions, an upcoming second trial on more serious charges which will very likely result in several additional convictions, and the option to retry him on the ten previous deadlocked charges. Mueller wouldn’t even be bothering to negotiate with Manafort, unless Manafort was offering to give up Donald Trump as part of the deal.
