Paul Manafort has just been given a trial date, and here comes Donald Trump’s meltdown
Days after Paul Manafort’s arrest, additional court documents were unsealed which offered a much deeper look at his money laundering shenanigans – and how tightly they were tied to Russia. Accordingly, Donald Trump had a meltdown last night on Twitter which saw him randomly accusing Hillary Clinton of money laundering. He had finally figured out that he’s going to be nailed for the same kind of Russian money laundering as Manafort. Things became even more real for Trump today when Manafort was assigned a trial date.
Today a federal judge assigned Paul Manafort a trial date of May 7th, 2018. Lest that date give anyone the wrong impression, this is how these kinds of schedules tend to work. One legal expert told Palmer Report that this date is slightly sooner than would normally have been expected for a trial of this type. In any case, this will only go to trial if Manafort refuses to cut a deal – and in that scenario, Mueller will have long moved on by flipping other witnesses against Trump instead.
So it’s not as if this trial date means a lot to the Trump-Russia investigation itself. Manafort will have flipped long before then, or his trial will end up being irrelevant to the Trump-Russia probe anyway. But this date will matter to Donald Trump. He’s clearly been following the Manafort developments closely this week. No matter how addled Trump’s brain may be, some of these details are managing to get through to him. He’s panicked about the money laundering charges. Now he’s just found out that Manafort is indeed set for trial, and that the courts aren’t just going to magically set Manafort free because of unicorns and rainbows. So now we all know what’s coming next.
Depending on when the news of Paul Manafort’s trial date finally reaches an increasingly isolated and coddled Donald Trump, we’re looking at perhaps his most berserk meltdown to date. Perhaps he’ll tweet that he just learned Hillary Clinton is going on trial for money laundering on May 7th, 2018. Perhaps he’ll just go indiscriminately off the deep end. In any case, get your popcorn.
