Paul Manafort makes surprise last-minute legal move that may signal a plea deal with Robert Mueller

| 6:50 pm EDT July 30, 2018
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This morning Palmer Report took a moment to remind observers of the upcoming Paul Manafort trial that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s real goal would be to push Manafort into giving up and cutting a plea deal as quickly as possible. If the developments in the trial ended up seeming more clinical than sensational, it would be because Mueller was trying to destroy Manafort in court, rather than in the court of public opinion. Now Manafort has just made a move which calls into question whether there will even be a trial.

Just moments ago, Paul Manafort formally ended his ongoing effort to challenge Robert Mueller’s legal authority to put him on trial. Manafort had already lost a ruling on this, but he was continuing to appeal it. Because there is a mountain of incriminating evidence against Manafort, his strategy has always been to try to get the evidence thrown out and to get Mueller thrown off the case. So it’s a big deal that he’s suddenly dropping his appeal the evening before his trial begins.

There is more than one possible explanation for this legal filing. For instance, we’ve been hearing for several weeks that Paul Manafort’s lawyers are getting to expensive for him, as evidenced by his friends’ decision to create a legal defense fund for him. So it’s possible that Manafort is giving up on the low-percentage appeal because he needs to focus his remaining funds on his trial defense. But if Manafort is indeed coming close to running out of money, he’d have no chance of affording his high-priced lawyers through the end of a trial.

The most logical explanation for this move is that Paul Manafort is planning to walk into court tomorrow and announce that he’s cutting a plea deal with Robert Mueller. This doesn’t automatically mean that it’s going to happen. But this is a surprising move that makes little sense on the surface unless Manafort is cutting a deal against Donald Trump, so if there is no deal announced tomorrow, it means something else strange is afoot. This adds all the more intrigue to tomorrow’s trial kickoff.