Most
Americans know about George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and Rick Gates. How
they’ve all been indicted (along with a growing list of other malefactors) by
the Robert Mueller Special Counsel team investigating Russian interference in
the 2016 presidential election and associated criminal acts.
First,
former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who ran off at the mouth about
working with the Russians to undermine U.S. elections and then lied to the FBI;
then Michael Flynn, Trump’s first Director of National Security, who failed to
register as a foreign agent and also lied to the FBI; and finally, Rick Gates,
the assistant director of the Trump Campaign who committed financial fraud and
then—predictable as rain—lied to the FBI.
They’ve
all “flipped,” as mob boss Donald Trump describes them, ratting out others higher
up in the chain of command to avoid spending a great many years in the slammer
(including, we are wishfully predicting, his Nibs in the Oval Office).
And
now we hear that last week, as a Virginia federal jury was deliberating about eighteen
counts of conspiracy, money laundering, and false statements, the
defendant former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort tried to negotiate a deal
with prosecutors. Even after his conviction on eight of those felony counts,
and with a new trial fast approaching in Washington, D.C. on additional Ukraine/Russia-related
charges (being an unregistered agent of a foreign power), Manafort recognizes
that he is in big trouble (deep shit as our eloquent Commander in Chief might say).
Michael
Cohen also came over from the dark side to offer whatever he knows about his
erstwhile boss (which is potentially substantial) to the Mueller team. The Fixer
of seemingly infinite loyalty who clammed up for months has realized that his
life could stagnate for a very long time in a tiny barred cell if he kept his
oath of fealty to the boss, a boss who never ceased to ridicule and deride him
every chance he got.
As
Professor Alan Dershowitz delicately described the downside of Trump’s
loyalists defecting to avoid prison sentences that could keep them in
Leavenworth for the rest of their natural lives:
“Businessmen are going to be deterred from running for
political office because it’s going to result in a sort of legal colonoscopy.”
“Businessmen”?
These guys were simply acting as ordinary businessmen?
Manafort’s
failure to report tens of millions of dollars in income from a
Russian-influenced Ukrainian strongman accompanied by excessive spending on multiple
homes and expensive suits (even an ostrich jacket) was simply acting as a “businessman”?
In
whose fantasy universe?
The
ever-voluble Professor Dershowitz is worried about legitimate businessmen (and—let
us give him the benefit of the doubt—businesswomen) avoiding politics because
their illegal deeds might end up splayed across the tabloids in a federal probe
against presumably inevitable thefts and grifting, kind of like The Trump Organization?
Is
Dershowitz suffering from Martha’s Vineyard Alienation Syndrome?
Honest
politicians have nothing to fear from being featured on the national stage as they
conduct our nation’s business. Rather, the ones who regard campaign financing accounts
and the federal treasury as their personal piggybanks and opportunities for
“branding” to rake in big bucks from local lobbyists and foreign autocrats
laundering illegal wealth are the charlatans who should be avoiding the
spotlight of public service.
Dear
Professor Dershowitz: Who has been spiking your drinks on Martha’s Vineyard?
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