Paul Manafort gets surprise subpoena: either he’s flipped on Donald Trump, or he’s decided to go down in flames

| 10:40 am EDT July 25, 2017
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

When working with limited information, figuring out what’s really going on usually comes down to eliminating possibilities until only one is left. But in the case of Paul Manafort, today’s events have narrowed his situation down to two possible scenarios. In an unfortunate development in the clarity department, based on today’s developments there are now only two specific scenarios remaining for Paul Manafort – and they’re precise opposites.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has officially subpoenaed Paul Manafort this morning, according to an official statement on the committee’s website. The reasoning: Manafort was only willing to produce one transcribed interview to all of Congress, which the committee says would not have ended up in its hands. So its previous offer to let Manafort come in and testify in private is now off the table, and right now U.S. Marshals are presumably hunting down Manafort in order to serve him that subpoena. So what the heck is going on? Two opposite scenarios: either he’s decided to go down in flames, or he’s already flipped on Donald Trump.

Think about it. There are only two reasons why Paul Manafort would refuse to play ball with even the relative softball that the Senate Judiciary Committee had just tossed him. The first is that he’s already concluded he’s going to prison one way or the other, and he’s not willing to take his co-conspirator friends down with him, so he spitefully sees no point in cooperating. The second is that he’s already secretly cut a deal with the Special Counsel to flip on his co-conspirator friends, and he’s been told not to show up and testify, and he’s not worried about the subpoena because it can’t hurt him anyway.

So this now comes down to a sort of choose-your-own-adventure book. Which of the above two scenarios do you think applies to Paul Manafort’s refusal to cooperate? And will Donald Trump Jr. now be subpoenaed as well? Stay tuned.