Yesterday, the White House distanced itself from Manafort. The WH spokesperson said that Manafort troubles have nothing to do with Trump ... but no mention of the Trump campaign. Trump is not showing loyalty to his minions. i would not be surprised if once charged Trump's minions will give up any and everyone they can.
... or perhaps Carter Page? Carter Page: Russia 'may have come up' in his Trump campaign emails, 'nothing major' was discussed Heh... yea, sure... Heh... yea, sure... http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/30/politics/carter-page-george-papadopoulos/index.html
The candidate that Manafort worked for is President of the US now. Keep in mind too that these investigations had already started back when Trump was still a candidate. Further these investigations are complex and and take a lot of time. It's not like this weekend Mueller just decided that Manafort was a big deal. Are you saying that Mueller shouldn't be issueing indictments? As Mueller showed with unsealing the Papadopoulos plea he already has a lot of intel.
Do you seriously think that a former director of the FBI who is widely praised on both sides of the aisle doesn't know what he is doing in terms of how he is proceeding in getting the "bad guys" By the way he is also looking into Tony Podestra least anyone calls this a partisan witch hunt.
The unregistered foreign agent charge bothers me a bit. Apparently this is one of those things where there is a law on the books that nobody complies with, and for whatever reason the feds don't often prosecute. I believe laws that are only capriciously enforced are illegitimate. "Foreign agent" sounds ominous and its prosecutorially expedient to have it at your disposal. But, shouldn't they have been prosecuting people all along?
...well, capital (money) can and should go where ever, and do whatever, it wants, I've heard... ...couple that logic with essentially legalizing "pay-for-play" (otherwise known as Citizens United)... ...and it would seem that we have ourselves quite a stew boiling here now...
Well, it is legal and actually required to register as a foreign agent if you are going to do those duties. I believe that there is any number of registered foreign agents working. The difference is that they aren't trying to do it on the down-low. Add to that the money laundering and other crimes these guys have been accused of committing, and it would make sense as to why they were trying to hide their foreign agent activities.
you know how many people have complied with it and how many people have been charged for not complying?
I guess the "young, low-level guy named George..." pleading guilty was a surprise to Liar in Chief https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...-post-editorial-board/?utm_term=.2632a7e828d3 Here's that young low-level guy (that Trump calls a liar now) in a high-level National Security Meeting. Sitting four people away from Trump.
This is the 7th such indictment since the 1960s and they've only gotten one conviction. This is per an NPR story which is mostly what I'm reacting too. Apparently, it's not uncommon to dodge the foreign agent registration requirements, though obviously I don't know how many people are out of compliance. This is obviously one of the Republican talking points, emanating from Manafort's lawyer and echoed by Grassley. But, I think it has some merit to it. In this Trump season, there are a lot of criminal accusations going around that essentially revolve around proper paperwork. Even so, it's just one charge of several, and probably not as grave as money laundering and conspiracy against the US.
as of 10/31/2017 there are 1,827 active individuals registered, 402 active companies registered, and 543 active foreign principals registered so I'm not sure where you got that FARA "is a law on the books that nobody complies with" https://www.fara.gov/quick-search.html and there have been 85 cases as of 1992 https://www.justice.gov/usam/crimin...gn-agents-registration-act-cases-and-material
Good finds. I'm scratching my head to make it square with Chuck Grassley's quote: "I've been raising concerns about lackluster enforcement of this foreign influence disclosure law for years now, regardless of administration or political party. The dirty little secret is that lots of people across the political spectrum in Washington have skirted their FARA obligations for years now with little to no accountability." He could be flat lying or, more likely, there is something (probably many things) I totally don't understand about FARA.
I think it all squares. For every FARA registered (and about 2,000 is not that many out of 300M Americans, including many living abroad with complex financial arrangements w' foreign interests), there could be one or two who are effectively FARA but not registered. Fits Grassley's complaint and the data, I think.
Well that's not "lots of people." For Grassley to not be misleading in his statement, you need widespread flouting of the law among the people to whom it applies.
There should be but I want bad guys caught and punished immediately especially when they are getting paid millions to destabilize an entire country and have Ukrainian innocent citizens blood on their had. I mean as early as 2004 the FBI and other Feds knew what he was doing. Why not stop him there and perhaps saved thousands of innocent lives in the process and maybe save Crimea too! I mean 10 years working with and supporting the folks that likely contributed to 2014 Crimea "independence" and Russia occupation. He wasn't around 13 years ago when FBI and others knew what Manafort was up to. These same people would have know what he was up to when he tried to join/influence both Clinton and Trump campaigns. Why would they let that happen? Why would they not deal with "bad guys" from day 1 especially considering what happened in Ukraine 10 years after Manafort's dealings. I'm just speculating that it seems for some folks they'll let criminals run amok when it's criminal activity they support, agree with, or at the very least don't mind. Meanwhile innocents are impacted. I have some Ukrainianing friends and that **** bothers me morally, ethically, and emotionally.
