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Manafort retroactively registers as foreign agent

M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
So his campaign manager who was a foreign agent was totally not colluding with a foreign entity while running the campaign of a presidential candidate?
 
A

Autodidact

Banned
Yesterday: Carter Page interviewed by FBI without a lawyer
Today: Paul Manafort retroactively registers as foreign agent
Tomorrow and rest of the week: ???

We have a narrative building, people. I hope we get some truly explosive news in the next few days.
 
C

cameron

Member
Coverage from WaPo: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort files as foreign agent for Ukraine work
A consulting firm led by Paul Manafort, who chaired Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, retroactively filed forms Tuesday showing that his firm received $17.1 million over two years from a political party that dominated Ukraine before its leader fled to Russia in 2014.

Manafort disclosed the total payments his firm received between 2012 and 2014 in a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing late Tuesday that was submitted to the U.S. Justice Department. The report makes Manafort the second former senior Trump adviser to acknowledge the need to disclose work for foreign interests.

Manafort is one of a number of Trump associates whose campaign activities are being scrutinized by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of a probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s team has been consolidating inquiries into matters unrelated to the election.
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FARA requires so-called foreign agents to register within 10 days of agreeing to conduct work for the foreign entity and to provide updates every six months on political activities. The disclosures require more minute details than what is covered for domestic lobbyists.

For instance, foreign agents must disclose efforts to exert politically-related influence on think tanks and through the media, as well as to directly lobby government officials.

Deliberately failing to file as a foreign agent may result in a felony criminal charge accompanied by steep monetary civil penalties. In practice, however, the Department of Justice generally encourages voluntary compliance and prosecutions under the act are “quite rare,” said Joseph Sandler, an attorney who specializes in political law, including FARA. The Justice Department generally allows people to register retroactively if questions arise about their past activities and the law requires no late fees or other penalties.

“If it was genuinely inadvertent or negligent, if there’s nothing nefarious you want to hide, there’s no downside to retroactively registering,” Sandler said.
Click to expand...
 
K

KernelPanic

Member
BronsonLee said:
What's the benefit of him doing this now? Does it offer him protection to some degree?
Click to expand...

I've read that when witnesses get flipped part of their deal is to retroactively go back and remediate whatever laws they broke.

So Manafort didn't register as a foreign agent. In return for testimony and evidence they won't prosecute him but he does have to go back and retroactively do what he should have done in the first place.

It's a strong sign.

Kind of like a bank robber who has flipped going back to the bank he robbed and giving them their money back and saying he's sorry. That doesn't just happen on its own.
 
M

MarionCB

Member
Manafort started being paid $10 million a year to be a foreign agent for Russia to influence US politics a decade ago. We don't know when that stopped. Now after a year of it being comprehensively reported, he finally registers as a foreign agent as the law requires.

It seems this law is toothless and of little use, or it's only use is to pressure people to flip when caught and registering so late is about cleaning up the witness for the prosecution. I really hope it is the latter.
 
M

mnannola

Member
"You know what I think I may also be working for the Ukraine."

"What?! Did this just start?"

"Naa it's been a while, guess I just forgot. Whoopsie daisy!"
 
K

KernelPanic

Member
Foreign agent registration is the least of his problems.

https://www.google.ca/amp/globalnews.ca/news/3374220/paul-manafort-trump-russia-ukraine/amp/

Previously, Manafort and his spokesman, Jason Maloni, have maintained the ledger was fabricated and said no public evidence existed that Manafort or others received payments recorded in it.

The AP, however, identified in the records two payments received by Manafort that aligned with the ledger: one for $750,000 that a Ukrainian lawmaker said last month was part of a money-laundering effort that should be investigated by U.S. authorities. The other was $455,249 and also matched a ledger entry.

The newly obtained records also expand the global scope of Manafort’s financial activities related to his Ukrainian political consulting, because both payments came from companies once registered in the Central American country of Belize. Last month, the AP reported that the U.S. government has examined Manafort’s financial transactions in the Mediterranean country of Cyprus as part of its probe.
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Getting paid by a pro Putin oligarch in the Ukraine, payments appear in a ledger found, he tries to dismiss it as fake news but then the AP finds that some of the figures match up to payments made to his business from companies in the Belize via Cyprus. Someone is trying to hide where that money came from....

No wonder Mueller is hiring people who are experts at flipping witnesses.
 
C

Chained Prometheus

Member
KernelPanic said:
Foreign agent registration is the least of his problems.

https://www.google.ca/amp/globalnews.ca/news/3374220/paul-manafort-trump-russia-ukraine/amp/



Getting paid by a pro Putin oligarch in the Ukraine, payments appear in a ledger found, he tries to dismiss it as fake news but then the AP finds that some of the figures match up to payments made to his business from companies in the Belize via Cyprus. Someone is trying to hide where that money came from....

No wonder Mueller is hiring people who are experts at flipping witnesses.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get the feeling that someone's already cracked and sung like a bird to the IC. Obviously the investigation is still ongoing, but it feels like something big's coming and soon.
 
R

Random Human

They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
Surfinn said:
Could the big drop be confirmation of collision from somebody who was flipped?
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That's what I'm thinking. It's weird Manafort and Page are back in the news, and it also follows a week or two ago when we learned Mueller recruited a professional flipper guy on his team.

This would be a huge development if true. Obviously just pure speculation though.
 
L

Loxley

Member
BronsonLee said:
What's the benefit of him doing this now? Does it offer him protection to some degree?
Click to expand...

If he was found working for/with another government during his time on the Trump campaign and was responsible for wrongdoing and wasn't registered as a foreign agent, one would assume the potential punishment would be much more severe. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a part of some deal with the feds.
 
D

Darknight

Member
I hope this isnt a "way out" for this asshole. How is it fair these rich fucks can break laws then sign a paper years later so that they aren't penalized in some form?

edit: just read more post. Hope he lands in Jail with his corrupt buddies.1
 
K

KernelPanic

Member
Chained Prometheus said:
Yeah, I get the feeling that someone's already cracked and sung like a bird to the IC. Obviously the investigation is still ongoing, but it feels like something big's coming and soon.
Click to expand...

If they traced the shady financial payments to Russia that's all they need. FARA is a drop in the bucket.

FinCEN and flipping witnesses are their 2 best assets to nail these assholes.
 
X

XMonkey

lacks enthusiasm.
I believe this was reported awhile ago, although the WaPo story has some new details. Kind of interesting they're bringing this up again now, though...
 
A

Autodidact

Banned
TheCochese said:
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it would require Justice to do something and we know they won't. It's up to Mueller's team, and does he have jurisdiction over this? I know he how powers to bring charges on a range of things.
Click to expand...

Rosenstein would make that call, and I trust him more than Sessions.
 
O

Oersted

Member
KernelPanic said:
Foreign agent registration is the least of his problems.

https://www.google.ca/amp/globalnews.ca/news/3374220/paul-manafort-trump-russia-ukraine/amp/



Getting paid by a pro Putin oligarch in the Ukraine, payments appear in a ledger found, he tries to dismiss it as fake news but then the AP finds that some of the figures match up to payments made to his business from companies in the Belize via Cyprus. Someone is trying to hide where that money came from....

No wonder Mueller is hiring people who are experts at flipping witnesses.
Click to expand...

Lets we forget that the bank where the money went trough had Wilbur Ross on top.
 
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