Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Mueller Seeks Immunity for Manafort Witnesses


Special prosecutor Robert Mueller has asked the judge who will preside over the fraud trial of Paul Manafort to grant immunity to five witnesses who may be called to testify against Trump's former campaign manager, the guy with the sketchy ties to Moscow.
Mueller didn’t identify the witnesses, who haven’t been charged. The five would invoke their constitutional right against self-incrimination and remain silent unless Judge T.S. Ellis III grants them immunity, prosecutors said Tuesday in a court filing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Their names will be made public only if they are called to testify, according to the filing. 
“Disclosing the motions would reveal those individuals’ involvement in the investigation and the trial, thereby creating the risk of undue harassment,” prosecutors wrote. “Such concern potentially would be heightened by the additional revelation that they have invoked their privilege against self-incrimination.” 
Prosecutors asked Ellis to seal five separate motions about the potential witnesses and unseal any of them if they are called to testify.
Manafort, 69, is accused of bank fraud and tax crimes in the Alexandria case. He would be the first of 32 people charged by Mueller to go to trial. He faces a Sept. 17 trial in Washington on charges of money laundering, obstruction of justice and acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Ukraine.
Immunity can be both carrot and stick. It can encourage cooperative witnesses to testify without fear of incriminating themselves. It can also be a way to coerce uncooperative witnesses to testify by exposing them to convictions for contempt or worse if they refuse to answer the prosecutor's questions.

8 comments:

the salamander said...

.. 32 charged by Robert Mueller .. and more to come - still BloatFace Trump whines 'witch hunt' - not all are 'associates' of the friend of Putin.. yet all are or were 'associated' with Trumph, his campaign, family, finances, law suits.. all manner of felonies of course, too many to list. Still he hides behind 'no collusion, like a protective mantra. . when they are specific felonies, not called 'collusion' with is the catch all terms lazy media rolls with as does Dotage Donald McBloat Face.

The laugh of the day yeserday was him lame and hasty 'I mis-spoke' at the Putin presser after being flayed by all and sundry. The guy is so full of it.. It is up there now as one of his biggest flat out lies - trypical stuff for a grifter & serial daily liar who can't keep his stories straight.. ever... 'crooked Hillary' ? Pus sack Donald puts her to shame in the crooked department - running on empty as far as ethics, morality, courage, veracity or credibility.. but then what should we expects from a life long scumbag ?

Anonymous said...

Trump is certainly right this is a witch hunt. This is the first witch they threw in the water. Drowned. Not a witch. Charged with other things.

Not charged with being a part of some flaky Alex Jones conspiracy theory played out by Big Players in Big Places as a distraction from real political issues and losing to a gameshow host – and, of course, to toss red meat to the Trump Hystericals.

Like Rachael Maddow. It's hard to believe that she's so bent out of shape over Trump it turned her from a respected journalist into a raving lunatic. (A very wealthy raving lunatic.)

Of course, journalists and other meat-puppets get paid to do scripts. Get paid to write them. Get paid to believe in them.

They seem to be throwing a lot of money at them these days. (Good little doggies sometimes even eagerly doing tricks for free to hustle some tasty treats from their masters. – Bad little doggies!)

Some people only wear the Black Pill. They can afford to take it off on nights and weekends. Vacations. Kick back and relax. Have some fun. Forget their dreary 9-to-5. Forget about it all.

the salamander said...

.. someone commenting has a loose wire or two.. probably a Hannity fan.. If Hannity was adopted by a kindly first Nations tribe they would call him 'running mouth'.. as that's all he does.. runs his partisan mouth endlessly.. Alex Jones, even more insane.. cannot believe he is not in prison. The entire GOP plague ship is rotting.. its undeniable.. and they just don't care (until they start leaking votes)

the salamander said...

.. someone commenting has a loose wire or two.. probably a Hannity fan.. If Hannity was adopted by a kindly first Nations tribe they would call him 'running mouth'.. as that's all he does.. runs his partisan mouth endlessly.. Alex Jones, even more insane.. cannot believe he is not in prison. The entire GOP plague ship is rotting.. its undeniable.. and they just don't care (until they start leaking votes)

Northern PoV said...

deus ex machina

any day now .... ;-)

The Mound of Sound said...


Yeah, Sal, this anonymouse is out there. As soon as he referred to journalists as meat puppets that much was clear. Then again he brings all the credibility of anonymity - which is none.

Anonymous said...

4:18 .. Why don't you relieve yourself by jumping into a lake.

Jay Farquharson said...

The Koolaide sites and threads like The Donald reddit, are only getting Deplorable eyeballs, which are down from 23% to around 16%.

As a result the SovCit/GRU/FSO/Alex Jones/NRA "counterfactual" propaganda ain't working the way it used to.

Real time tracking of the bot's and trolls activity, is quickly "doxxing" their attempts to set up new fake news sites and new fake "movements" like #walkaway.

A large number of "neutral" sites that were used to push Russian ratfucking, have moved to moderated comments, brought in isp based banhammers or in many cases, don't allow comments on some subjects at all, to make St. Petersburg's work a lot harder.

As a result, the anonamice have taken to "spamming" left/center sites that still have unmoderated comments using two different techniques, "jumping in", trying to get the first comment in, and "deadthreading", posting a comment days after the site has "moved on".

While jumping in can get more eyeballs, dead threading makes it harder for the comment threads to be policed.