3/7/19: Lately, it sucks to be Donald Trump. He can’t get the cash he wants to build the Great Wall, and he promised he was going to renegotiate the hell out of all the bad trade deals other presidents made. He would fix the whole balance-of-trade mess.
Fanfare please: the trade deficit for 2018 turns out to be $621 billion, the highest figure in ten years.
Last time it was worse: 2008, after the last Republican president
plunged the U.S. economy into a near depression.
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THEN AGAIN, maybe it doesn’t suck so much to be Trump! Party time at the White House, as former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is sentenced to only 47 months in jail!
Manafort even gets credit for eight months served.
In the president’s mind this unexpectedly light sentence proves that there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russians. Speaking to reporters gathered on the White House lawn, he explains:
I feel very badly for Paul
Manafort…uh… I think it’s been a very, very tough time for him, but if you
notice, both his lawyer, a highly respected man and a very highly respected
judge said that there was no collusion with Russia, this had nothing to do with
collusion with Russia, because there was no collusion. It’s a collusion hoax, a
collusion witch hunt.
“So bad for our country,” he adds with the wave of a hand and a spritz of self-pity.
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If you are looking for Manafort's pal...you'll need to head to Moscow. |
Hint of a pardon might influence Manafort to keep yap closed.
A reporter asks if the president has ever discussed a pardon for Manafort – because, you know, the hope of a pardon might influence Manafort to keep his yap closed if he did know about collusion.
“I don’t even discuss it,” the president insists. “The only one discussing it is you.”
Only we know that’s not true. Trump has said repeatedly he won’t take a pardon off the table.
Wink. Wink.
Rudy Giuliani has also admitted that lawyers for “several people” under investigation by Special Counsel Mueller have approached him to ask if the president might someday grant pardons. These pardons, we know, are not off the table. I mean, it could depend on what defendants say in court. Rudy says he always tells them he can’t promise them anything and they leave “disappointed.”
Then again, pardons are not off the table.
Wink.
Wink. Wink.
For now, Manafort knows he caught a break. Next week he faces additional sentencing in a Virginia court for another set of crimes. In that case, he’ll find out how much additional time he must serve for additional felonies committed. And in that case the charges do hint at collusion with Russia.
One felony involves witness tampering, related to Mr. Manafort’s efforts to sync testimony with Konstantin Kilimnik.
Kilimnik used to hang around Washington D.C., but recently fled to Russia.
POSTSCRIPT: Allow me to clarify! A pardon has been ruled out for one of six convicted felons from the Trump campaign.
That would be Michael Cohen. Cohen has been coughing up evidence damaging to Mr. Trump.
There will be no pardon for him.
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