Paul Manafort’s self destruction is Donald Trump’s undoing
Paul Manafort was always going to, at least initially, try to fight the Trump-Russia criminal charges against him instead of cutting a plea deal. He’s the one Trump adviser who had the financial resources to hire the kind of high priced attorneys who specialize in getting obviously guilty people off on technicalities. Palmer Report has long theorized that Robert Mueller arrested Manafort first, not because he thought he could flip him, but because he wanted to filet Manafort like a fish and send a message to other Trump-Russia players. It turns out Mueller is even smarter than that, or he’s gotten lucky.
Manafort is self destructing in cartoonish fashion since his arrest. He has been from the start. First he got caught conspiring with an alleged Russian spy to plant an op-ed aimed at tainting the jury pool. Now he’s gotten caught conspiring with that same Russian to try to tamper with witnesses. Manafort is either trying to destroy himself on purpose, or he’s so arrogant and out of control, he just can’t help destroying himself. This is so much better for Mueller than if he had simply gone in and kicked Manafort’s butt at trial.
We still don’t know what Mueller plans to do with Konstantin Kilimnik, the alleged Russian spy who keeps getting caught conspiring with Paul Manafort on these antics. But we do know that whatever Mueller is looking to do with Kilimnik, it just got a lot easier. The same goes for “Person D1” and “Person D2,” the two unnamed witnesses they were trying to tamper with. The more people who are dragged into this mess by Manafort’s reckless and self incriminating behavior, the more angles open up for Mueller to get to the center of the Trump-Russia conspiracy.
Paul Manafort’s self destruction is Donald Trump’s undoing. Manafort doesn’t have to flip on Trump in order to take him down; he just needs to keep making these idiotic moves that are unwittingly making Robert Mueller’s job easier. We don’t know if Mueller was counting on Manafort self destructing like this. Is this why he didn’t fight particularly hard to prevent Manafort from being let out on house arrest? In any case, we may have to send Manafort a thank you card in prison.
