The Room Where It Happens
No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in
The room where it happens
Lyrics from the song – The Room Where It Happens – from Hamilton, once again creating the themes for our era
Paul Manafort, Manager of the Trump Campaign during a critical time, yesterday pled guilty to a series of charges under the following headings:
- Conspiracy against the US
- Money Laundering
- Tax fraud
- Failing to file Foreign Bank Account Reports
- Failing to file as a Foreign Agent
- Lying to the Department of Justice
- Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice (Witness tampering.)
He reached an agreement with the Special Counsel’s office, avoiding an upcoming trial in Washington DC. This happened after he was found guilty last month on eight federal charges in Virginia, putting him in jail for fifteen years, and faced a possible thirty-seven year sentence in the second trial. All of this would add up to a life sentence for a sixty-nine year old man.
The agreement: Manafort would fully cooperate with the Special Counsel, waiving the right to counsel during questioning and answer all questions truthfully, testifying when and where required. If Manafort fulfills the agreement, then the Special Counsel will ask the Court for reduced sentencing on both the Virginia and District of Columbia courts. If not – it’s the rest of his life in prison.
None of the crimes he has pled guilty to are directly connected to the Trump campaign or the 2016 elections. So when White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders states that the guilty pleas have nothing to do with the President or his campaign, she’s right. But what the plea agreement does do is give the Special Counsel full access to what Manafort did and what Trump knew, during the campaign.
This agreement puts Robert Mueller’s team “…in the room where it happens” in several pivotal events in the Trump Campaign. The best known is the June 16, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, where Manafort, Donald Trump Jr, and Jared Kushner met with Natalia Veselnitskaya and three other Russians to talk about getting “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. But it also gives first person access to the platform decision to drop support for arming Ukraine, and insight into the relationship between the campaign and Cambridge Analytica, the US backed, UK based, “psychographic microtargeting” firm.
Manafort was “…in the room where it happens” from March when he joined as head of the “delegate team” for the Republican Convention, through June when he was made Chairman of the Campaign, to his resignation in August. And recent evidence from the Virginia trial shows that he continued to have influence after leaving. Not only was Manafort’s key aide, Rick Gates, the Deputy Campaign and Deputy Inaugural Committee Chairman, but Manafort himself was still influential, even trying to barter appointments in exchange for bank loans.
He was part of the critical developments in the Trump foreign policy team, putting him into the mix with then-Senator Jeff Sessions, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos; all of whom have been implicated with Russian connections. And Manafort himself had major Russian connections, including owing $10 million to Putin ally Oleg Deripaska. Manafort offered to give him private briefings during the campaign as partial repayment of the loan.
Paul Manafort has now, as a former US Attorney stated, “…switched to Team United States.” And, should the President decide to Pardon him, Manafort would still have to testify. A Pardon would remove his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination (he can’t incriminate himself for a crime he already has been pardoned for) and would put him in front of a Grand Jury under penalty of perjury. And, of course, a Presidential Pardon would certainly become another block in Mueller’s building obstruction of justice case against the President.
The Agreement has forced the Trump legal team to find new Constitutional interpretations. Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Professor and unofficial Trump advisor, yesterday raised the novel theory that a President can only be impeached for actions that occur while President. This is an extension of the political cover that Trump has used since the Access Hollywood tape: that voters in the election determined and exonerated him for actions before the election. Once they have voted, the issue is “dead.”
The impeachment clause of the Constitution states:
The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
A plain reading of the clause shows no time limits, such as the words “while in office.” But Professor Dershowitz has spent his career trying to find differing interpretations of the law to support his clients, so it should be no surprise that he is advancing this one.
And Dershowitz, along with the President’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, has used the expression, “…people with plea agreements ‘sing,’ but they also ‘compose.’” It suggests that Manafort will make up any story in order to reduce his sentence, and attempts to damage his credibility as a potential witness. Former US prosecutors counter that, like Rick Gates’ testimony in the first Manafort trial, any statements Manafort would make in trial would be backed up with mountains of other evidence. And of course, should Manafort lie to the Special Counsel, he faces the enormous penalty of life in prison.
While the Special Counsel will find the truth through whatever legal means necessary, the cooperation of Paul Manafort will certainly provide more information and insight into what the Trump Campaign was doing, and perhaps help answer the question: “what did the President know and when did he know it.”
Manafort was, “…in the room where it happened.”
