You bet your life

| 11:15 pm EST November 14, 2019
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Paul Manafort is currently rotting in solitary confinement, and he’ll remain there for the rest of his natural life. As we speak, a jury is deliberating whether to convict Roger Stone and send him to prison for the rest of his natural life. Rudy Giuliani is on the verge of being arrested on charges that’ll send him away for the rest of his life. Bill Barr has committed the kinds of obstruction crimes that have earmarked him for the same fate.

These men – Manafort, Stone, Giuliani, and Barr – are all set to rot in a cage until they die there. They’ve each literally bet their lives on the hope that Donald Trump ends up pardoning them. Each of these men had a way out of this. Manafort and Stone could have gotten cooperating plea deals that would likely have let them out of prison before they die of old age. Giuliani still can get this kind of deal. Barr simply had to not join the Trump regime, and he wouldn’t be on track to die in a cage. The question is why these men have all bet their lives on such losing hands.

Sure, there’s the argument that Paul Manafort didn’t want to flip because the Russians might have gotten to him if he had. There’s also the notion that because Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani each have so much dirt on Donald Trump, they can essentially force Trump to pardon them, even if that pardon ends up being very costly for Trump. And there’s the notion that when Bill Barr first decided to join the Trump regime, he didn’t realize he was going to end up so deeply involved in Trump’s crime spree.

But those arguments aside, there’s no getting around the fact that these four men have effectively decided that they’re fine with living and dying alone in a cage if Donald Trump doesn’t magically bail them out. That’s remarkable, considering Trump’s famous lack of loyalty. It’s even more remarkable when you consider that Trump’s attempted pardons of alleged co-conspirators could easily end up being thrown out by the courts, and some of these men have state charges waiting for them even if they are pardoned on federal charges. These suckers have bet their lives on an incredibly bad hand. They’d all have done far better by cutting a plea deal against Donald Trump.