Being a well paid lobbyist or political consultant, even by different countries, isn't illegal*. Now hiding that money from the US government is, and that's what he got busted for. I think you were one of the people, if memory serves, that shrugged off Clinton donations supposed symmetry with her dealings as Secretary of State and otherwise. *There should be major lobbyist reform though.
And really, it's not that I think there is nothing to be suspicious of, but the way some people latch on to any and every narrative with this Russia thing is just straight retarded at this point. I can't believe making up daily bullshit theories has been a news media money machine for 2 years ongoing. That's not to say none of it has been relevant, but still, holy shit.
Given the Russian playbook that they have run in Georgia, Ukraine, etc, I think it's fair to say there is a lot more wrong with Manafort's conduct than merely his failure to disclose the payments. Failure to disclose is just a slam dunk the Feds were able to nail him on, but the more nebulous ideas of essentially operating as an agent of Russian intelligence in order to undermine Ukrainian elections, imprison political opposition, steal from industry, and ultimately conquer sovereign territory is something I see without parallel elsewhere.
Yeah he's a piece of shit, but he's not the president, he got fired from the campaign, and it was by far not the only one he ever worked on.
I think it's pretty damning how aggressively Manafort and Stone have angled for pardons. They're not even attempting legal defenses; everything they do is tailored toward pushing a public narrative of Trump and his people being persecuted. How guilty do you have to be, and of what, to basically say "fuck even attempting a legal defense, I'm going all in on a Presidential pardon"?
Didn't the judge issue a gag order on him though? Dude needs to shut the fuck up if he knows what's good for him. And regarding the pardons, we've already discussed on here how it'd basically be worse for them if they got pardoned. Since they they'd go to state jail and get fucked for life in the actual sense rather than just the metaphorical.
She issued a gag order so that they couldn't speak about the case in front of the courthouse. Nothing about not speaking about the case in general. She didn't specifically warn against social media postings. But I didn't think he would have to be warned not to threaten the judge on his case. I mean jesus christ.
Apparently he has already deleted the post. Which in my opinion is worse. If you're going full on lunatic, just own it. Don't go off the deep end like that, wait for everyone to see it, and then backtrack like whoopsies I didn't know it would offend people!
Did he do something other than that Instagram post? And, is the implication that the crosshair image is the threat? I'm certain that Roger Stone is a whack-job idiot, but that's just an image he copied from some other whack-job website. And the crosshairs aren't on her face.
Whiney little faggot bitch. Is there anybody actually proud of having this twerp as their president while also having a family tree with forks in it?
To be honest, no one affiliated with anyone in this administration deserves such charitable benefit of the doubt.
So what is he expecting this investigation to yield? That a bunch of comedy writers don't like him? Will government funds be used for this investigation? I want to watch this asshole go down like the Hindenburg just for shit like this. I assume that every president since the 1800's has done some shady shit to get into office, but Trump's insane narcissism and waste of taxpayer money for the purposes of stroking his ego are the straw that broke the camel's back, for me, anyway.
He has many faults, but it is by far the most annoying and pathetic. Nothing will ever so completely dominate his attention as people saying mean things about him. I so badly want there to be an investigation and then see the team that conducts it send him a report that says "Mr. President, it appears they are making fun of you."
My therapist says I’m fairly high on the narcissism spectrum and even I don’t understand how one can be so completely full of themselves that they want to prosecute someone for making fun of them. I remember hearing stories about how when trump did the Comedy Central roast, the only thing that was off limits was people making jokes about his wealth. Like they could make fun of his failed businesses and marriages and potentially illegitimate children, but they weren’t allowed to say he wasn’t as rich as he claimed.