The Cleveland Plain Dealer and its editorial Cartoonist Jeff Darcy put the battle of the competing House Intel Committee Memos in perspective today, Darcy succinctly in the cartoon above and the editorial staff in a more detailed column.
Noting that House Intel Dems released their own memo rebutting supposedly recuse-d ex-Chairman Nunes’ scribble of disinformation, the Plain Dealer puts the memo battle into perspective:
“New charges in the Russian investigation are another reminder that the now discredited House Intel Committee is nothing more than a sideshow compared to the work Mueller and his team have been doing. While Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff play wiffle ball, Mueller and his team of all stars are playing major league hardball, driving in indictments and guilty pleas. So far Mueller investigation has resulted in more than 100 charges being brought, with many more likely to come.”
And the Plain Dealer does not waste any of it’s readers’ time with wordy discourse describing the essence of the case Mueller is building against Manafort, who almost certainly broke many Federal Banking and Fraud Statutes in his desperate attempts to round up stacks of cash prior to his appointment as drumpf’s Campaign Chair, in two short paragraphs….
“According to the superseding indictment against him, Manafort owed a Putin allied oligarch $17 million when he joined the Trump campaign. It appears from the indictment, that Manafort sought out the position as campaign manager,in part, to leverage campaign access as a way to make himself "whole" with the oligarch seeking the $17 million back.
Manafort allegedly owed the Putin associate $17 million as he staged the Republican Convention in Cleveland, securing Trump's nomination. At the convention, the GOP platform's position on Ukraine was changed to mesh with Vladimir Putin's.”
The article continues, describing how Numbnut’s former associate Rick Gate’s guilty plea complicates Paulie’s high wire act - trying to avoid a stretch in the iron bar Hotel by not so subtly angling for a Presidential Pardon that may prove to politically costly and incriminating for drumpf to extend, and potentially worthless as States’ Attorneys General circle like hungry hyenas, hoping to gnaw the bones of Mueller’s prize catch.
But they also tersely point out another worry for Manafort, who certainly has them in a God’s plenty these days:
“Manafort not taking a plea deal may end up having less to do with concerns about getting a Trump pardon and more about fears over what the Russian-Ukraine thugs he got into bed with will do to him or his family if he talks.
Manafort's in the unenviable position of being stuck between Mueller, Trump and Putin associates. Mueller puts people in jail, Putin and his associates have been known to put people who pose a risk to them in a grave.”