Great points. One q- Since the VA Jury hung on the Federal Savings Bank counts, is the number he's already in the hole smaller? (Counts 25/27 convictions were for the $3.4M Citizens Bank loan, and a loan he didn't end up getting.)
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I quoted the relevant part. At least per the indictment, being found guilty on any of those permits the govt to seize the loan he did get.
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Yeah, so the amount of the loan would be $3.4M instead of $16M, no? Since the jury hung re: the latter loan.
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No. Not as I read it. As I read it (not an expert nor a lawyer), if he is found guilty of ANY of the fraud ones, he loses the one remaining loan he has, the $16M one. Granted Ellis may not push that, but...
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Looking into this more it appears SCO tied the VA trial potential forfeiture to two of the counts that ended up hung. At least they proposed to. They filed these while jury was deliberating.pic.twitter.com/5ugMTNpeKb
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Oh wow. So that makes the hung jury all important.
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Yeah, that holdout juror picked the right pair of counts to hold out on, I guess. Pretty amazing that this hasn't gotten more attention, as you point out.
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A $16M holdout!
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I talked to
@joshgerstein yesterday on some of these questions: 1. "It's a big win for Trump to get this trial off the calendar in late September or early October without cooperation. Manafort might just be doing one last solid for Trump."https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/13/giuliani-trump-manafort-plea-bargain-821797 … -
2. "Manafort might be saying, 'Enough is enough. I spent $1 million, or $500,000 on legal fees and got eight convictions. This is someone who seems to have cared a lot about money and he may now be trying to shield some amount of money for his family."
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3. Unfortunately, the article quotes someone saying a pardon would prevent Manafort from being able to invoke his 5th amendment rights. That's wrong. The risk of state prosecution means he still can invoke 5th A...
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4. Even after a pardon, don't expect a furlough between convictions: "It could be there's a sealed indictment ready to go and as soon as Manafort is released from federal prison, there's a van waiting to take him to state prison." And after witness tampering, no bail for you.
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@emptywheel , there was an explainer after the Scooter Libby case that discusses the process of a pardon returning fines:http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/07/can_scooter_get_a_refund.html … -
6. "Treasury can't issue a refund—even if that person is later exonerated. For Libby to get back his 250 Gs, Congress would need to pass a law to make the funds available. Or it's possible that President Bush could issue a customized presidential pardon that specifies a refund."
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Also, the form of "clemency" means a great deal. Is it just commutation? If so then likely little to no effect on financial portions of sentence. If full pardon, then it gets more complex, but even there forfeiture protection may not be complete at all.
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One observation: If Trump goes beyond a simple pardon to a "customized pardon" to return millions to Manafort, I think the strength of an obstruction of justice and bribery case against Trump increases - both legally and politically. Has to part of the calculus.
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Do you think Manafort is still in the joint defense agreement?
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It does seem like it.
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Which is batshit crazy but there you are.
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Oh, yep...just saw this!https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1040221762389270528?s=21 …
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