I—probably many of you too--suspected that the Biden caper wasn’t the first time Trump extorted Ukraine. Early in his administration, June 2017, Ukraine dropped its prosecution of Paul Manafort, and stopped cooperating with the Mueller investigation, in return for Trump selling them javelin anti-tank missiles and granting a White House meeting to Zelensky’s predecessor, President Poroshenko. But I assumed there was no hard evidence of quid pro quo there, and perhaps Trump didn’t need to explicitly extort: perhaps Ukraine just correctly surmised it needed to make nice with Trump in order to get what it needed.
But now! Per Rachel Maddow’s excellent broadcast Friday, we learn that not only was the Manafort-for-missiles thing (let’s call it the “Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot”) indeed an express quid pro quo engineered by TrumpCo (complete with Giuliani serving as head mob henchman), but there is apparently hard evidence, and lo even better! the House impeachment hounds just may be all over it.
In this girl’s humble opinion, the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot is potentially even more explosive than the missiles-for-dirt-on-Biden caper (call that one the “Biden Ukraine Extortion Plot”). Because now, we just might also be able to circle back to the Mueller probe and prove collusion linked directly to Trump.
This is a very long piece, verbosity is hard-wired in me. I will include a one-paragraph too-long, didn’t-read summation of the key takeaways at the end.
Let me start with two quick asides. First, I’m so eager to get to the collusion stuff, I won’t dwell on the details (yummy!) of the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot. I’m surprised no one has diaried it here, do check out a replay on MSNBC’s website if you missed Rachel’s excellent show. Second, I know the crime is properly termed “conspiracy,” not “collusion,” conspiracy being two or more people working together to achieve a criminal purpose. For convenience, and because “collusion” is the popular trope, I’m going with “collusion” in this piece.
So. Me personally, collusion—those acts committed in full view, those suspected covert acts—initially never excited me. The Trump Tower meeting for dirt on Hillary, the “Russia if you’re listening” bit, even the likelihood that TrumpCo coordinated with Wikileaks to maximize the impact of the DNC email leaks—those do not strike me as all that shocking, let alone impeachable. And clearly, neither did they so strike the vast majority of the country.
(The multiple instances of obstruction of justice, that was impeachable as hell. But sadly, not enough of the country was with us on that. A large part of the reason obstruction of justice did not resonate may have been the fact that TrumpCo never got fingered for an underlying crime. Indeed, “no underlying crime” was Barr’s improper, but sufficient for PR purposes, rationale for arguing that Trump was not guilty of that crime.)
So back to the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot. As I was saying, I was initially not much excited about the collusion case—until the revelation that Manafort gave Russia detailed polling data developed by the Trump campaign. Jesus, that’s collusion in spades.
Per the Mueller report, Russia attacked our election in two different ways. One was hacking and leaking the DNC emails through Wikileaks. The other, and possibly very effective, attack was the sophisticated disinformation campaign Russia carried out on social media.
Russia’s social media campaign micro-targeted persuadable voters in the handful of swing states that tipped the Electoral College to Trump. (I’ve seen one study that concluded that this very possibly did give Trump the victory.) To identify the persuadable voters, Russia needed detailed polling data. Which is what it got from Manafort.
Mueller declined to indict Manafort over this clear act of collusion for the flimsiest of reasons. Mueller did not say that helping Russia with its social media campaign was not a crime. Mueller did not say the polling data was not material assistance. Rather, solely, Mueller copped out with a weak “golly gosh, we can’t prove that the reason Manafort gave Russia this data was so Russia could use it in its attack.” That lame-ass shit was the one time I seriously wondered if Mueller had been leaned on to throw the case. I mean really? What the hell else did Russia want the data for? It was multiple times that Manafort passed that information along. Kilimnik travelled to New York to meet with Manafort in a cigar bar (the participants arrived and left by separate entrances), so Manafort could explain the data to him. Did Kilimnik collect detailed private campaign polling data as a hobby, that’s the perfectly innocent explanation?
(Indeed, given that Barr needed “no underlying crime” in order to justify his outrageous “no obstruction of justice,” how does it not stink to high heaven that Mueller glossed over this bit of Manafort/Russia coziness so glibly?)
So now to bring this back to the significance of the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot. Trump went to extraordinary lengths, stuck his neck pretty far out, to get Ukraine to lay off Manafort. After all, it is nearly the exact same fact pattern as the Biden Ukraine Extortion Plot, which is going to get Trump impeached. And in June 2017, Trump had no AG Roy Cohn to protect him, no track record of getting away with murder in his new, under-the-microscope gig. That was a pretty big risk he took.
So why go so far out of his way to save Manafort’s hide? News of the investigation forced Manafort to quit the Trump campaign, so he was no further use in that capacity. Trump had no history with Manafort, no particular reason for loyalty. Most to the point, we know that loyalty is a one-way street for Trump; he doesn’t do shit for anyone, unless that person can do something for him--or do something to him.
The Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot was a deliverable, from Trump to Manafort. Trump could not pardon Manafort out of his Ukraine jeopardy, but he could strong-arm the Ukrainian justice system. Trump was bribing the one witness he feared. Indeed, it was reported that Trump said Manafort was the only witness who could sink him, if he flipped. The revelation of the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot would seem hard proof of that rumor.
I submit, it is no great leap to figure out what beans Trump feared Manafort could spill: Manafort could prove collusion that the public might really care about, covert collusion, beyond the boring Trump Tower dirt-on-Hillary meeting (“who wouldn’t take that meeting,” yawned Trump), beyond the ho hum “Russia if you’re listening” (“it was a joke, sheesh”).
First, there is the significant collusion that we know occurred, the polling data. A Manafort flip would have supplied evidence of collusory intent, that the data was given to Russia to be used in its attack, the missing element Mueller [claims he] did not believe he could otherwise prove. And for all we know, there may have been other instances of covert, shocking collusion: for example, that odd traffic between the Trump Tower and Alfa Bank computers, Manafort may know and be able to prove that was extensive coordination between Team Trump and Russia.
I would also bet a nice sum that Manafort could tie Trump directly to the collusion, that Trump knew and approved it all. First, that fits what we know of Trump’s personality, he micro-manages. The stuff he’s interested in—in this case, winning, plus: all things Russia—that stuff he wallows in up to his dilated pupils. Second, we also know that Trump could give a shit if one of his capos takes a fall. He has zero shame about close associations with crooks, witness Michael Cohen. He has already lied dozens of such former associates out of the personal history he creates for himself, when they became inconveniently tainted in the public eye. “So some rogue member of the campaign staff—why the dude was there for just a couple months, I wouldn’t have recognized him in the hallway—got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, has nothing to do with me, Your Sainted President.” And he certainly has no loyalty to anyone but himself. (And his DNA, he might have bribed Manafort to save Jarvanka.) He would not have lifted a finger to help Manafort, other things being equal.
Naw, in this girl’s estimation, only a threat to his own fat neck (and/or Jarvanka’s) explains the lengths he went to, to get Manafort to keep his yap shut.
So, can this be proven? That may have to wait for President Biden/Warren/Buttigieg/Klobuchar/fill-in-your-preferred-here. And his or her honest AG. But perhaps it can indeed play out thus: Trump will of course pardon Manafort. That means Manafort can’t plead the Fifth when questioned about the collusion, and Trump’s, or Jared’s, involvement. President Dem can assure Ukraine that there will be no penalty for it reviving the shelved corruption probe against Manafort, and cooperating with our own probe into Manafort’s crimes against the US. And thus—if he doesn’t first flee US jurisdiction and international extradition treaties—we may yet live to hear Manafort sing. It could be quite an opera.
And maybe if the FSM is in a particularly benevolent mood, Manafort will get nervous, seeing renewed focus on his doings when the House starts poking into the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot. When the Articles of Impeachment get expanded beyond the Biden Ukraine Extortion Plot to include the even seedier prequel. Maybe cooperating with the House, in hopes of leniency from the next administration, will start to look more appealing to Manafort than depending on a pardon from the notoriously fickle and vindictive Trump.
And wouldn’t that be fun.
Finally, herewith, the too-long, didn’t-read one-paragraph takeway I promised. With the revelation of the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot, we know that Trump went to great lengths to get Ukraine to drop its corruption prosecution of Manafort. That can only have been a bribe to Manafort, to keep him from spilling some significant beans. And we can guess what those beans were: proof of some particularly nasty collusion. We know, at the least, that Manafort could have supplied the missing element of one very significant instance of collusion/conspiracy, sharing the Trump campaign’s polling data with Russia. There may be other egregious instances Manafort can reveal, such as the suspected illicit communication between Trump Tower and Alfa Bank computers. Such collusion, if proven, would move the needle of public opinion far more than the usual examples the pundits have focused on. I would further make the educated guess, Manafort can prove that Trump’s tiny fingerprints were over all of that shit, the egregious collusion with Russia’s attack. If the House drags the Manafort Ukraine Extortion Plot into the daylight, it’s not impossible that Manafort may yet, someday, spill his guts.