What Paul Manafort’s Boneheaded Mistakes Reveal About Trump’s Legal Vulnerabilities

“Not too bright!”

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“Boneheaded!”

That’s how Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn describes Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, who is now facing allegations that he tried to tamper with witnesses as he awaits trial on federal money-laundering and tax-evasion charges.

“We’ve seen a series of boneheaded moves throughout the scandal from the very beginning” of the Russia scandal, David told Mother Jones Senior Editor Aaron Wiener on this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast.

“He has two GPS ankle bracelets—not one, but two!—and his travel is highly, highly restricted,” David said. And yet Manafort has managed, yet again, to put himself in the special counsel’s cross-hairs. “Not too bright.”

As David explains this week for Mother Jones in more detail:

To recap this curious episode: Just two months after Mueller slammed Manafort for scheming with Kilimnick, a former Russian operative, to get around the gag order, Manafort—who was under close watch by Mueller’s crew—again allegedly recruited Kilimnick for a criminal plot to encourage perjury…  it’s hard to imagine that when Mueller and his team of prosecutors discovered Manafort’s latest scheme with Kilimnik, they weren’t shaking their heads in wonder and disbelief.  

Listen to the episode, and subscribe on iTunes:

Also on this week’s show, extraordinary stories of living in limbo: You’ll hear from Mother Jones readers who have had their lives upended by Trump’s travel ban and are now awaiting a fateful Supreme Court decision on the policy—coming any day now.

In January, Mother Jones asked readers to share their stories about how the ban has affected them. That’s how Anthony found us and shared the Kafkaesque nightmare of being separated from his boyfriend, Reza, an Iranian refugee who fled his home because the police found out he was gay. Podcast producer Ashley Dejean published Anthony’s story in March, and it was so powerful, we wanted you to hear from him directly on the podcast.

“We just try to have faith that love will find a way and then eventually we’ll be together,” Anthony told podcast host Jamilah King. “But we’re still hanging in there, and we’re still trying to find a way.” (We’re withholding his last name to protect his privacy.)

“I’m scared really scared,” he said. “I just can’t even believe that in America, we’re in this situation where somebody who had to flee their country because they were going to be killed is now being left out of our country because the country that he had to flee because they were going to kill him.”

You can read more stories from readers caught in Trump’s travel ban turmoil here.

And of course, as always, you’ll also hear from reporter David Beard with his weekly dose of uplifting news from the Recharge newsletter. Sign up for more here.

 

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This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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