What is the greatest danger to the rule of law was illustrated in the hold out of one juror in jury deliberations of the recent trilal of Paul Manafort in which he was found guilty of 8 of 18 counts. The Manafort defense counted on some jurors like her to get their client off the hook. At least, that was one explanation for their not putting on witnesses and a rebuttal of the facts set forth in the paper documents.by the prosecution. She viewed the Trump line that the reason Manafort was prosecuted for tax and bank fraud was because a guilty finding with a long jail term would cause him to flip and become evidence used by Mueller. Therefore the evidence was not as important as political loyalty, though eventually she did agree the evidence was beyond a reasonable doubt in eight counts.
This shows that Trump's attempt to prejudice the jury pool (the voters in northern Virginia) with this line almost worked. The name of the president was not uttered due to a judge's instructions and agreement among defense and prosecution before the trial began, though the connection did show up in the documents. While the holdout juror did come around to agreeing on 8 of the counts, her political assessment was probably correct, but it shows that Trump's devotees are inclined to, dismiss any obvious evidence of a crime by the accused in their political loyalty to their Leader. . As Trump himself noted, he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and his supporters would still be loyal.. This is the greatest danger to the rule of law., At least in this first Manafort trial, the rule of law won out...for now. The final outcome depends upon the President's future actions.
The second greatest danger to the rule of law would be if Trump pardoned Manafort on the basis that in his own judgment, he was treated unfairly, ignoring the final jury verdict, the fundamental foundation of our legal system....the jury of peers..
Trump needs to respect the jury's findings, but if he wants to reward Manafort's loyalty for keeping his mouth shut on the Russian connection, commuting his sentence would be the better approach., though it could be seen as witness tampering or obstruction of justice if offered in advance. . The second trial yet scheduled for September is about Manafort's Russian connection in interfering in the November 2016 election, though the jury pool in Washington DC is viewed to be less sympathetic to the President. If the trial proceeds, and Manafort does not flip to become witness for the prosecution, offering either pardon or commuting the sentence in advance would be overt tampering with both the jury pool and the defendant.
.Assuming the president could be exempted from criminal prosecution while sitting in office, this could become another article of impeachment. The chance again that impeachment would ever result in his removal of office depends upon a 2/3 vote of Senators, highly unlikely to happen unless the spineless GOP Senate sees their poll numbers collapse. This happening is dependent on whether Mueller's report is so damning of the president himself that even some supporters get turned off. Trump is correct as he stated in an August 22 interview on Fox. about the Michael Cohen guilty plea that campaign finance violations nd his alleged direction of Cohen are "not a big deal". What he is implying this was not serious enough to motivate his supporters to abandon him. Covering up the Watergate break in and using campaign funds in order to influence an upcoming election got Nixon the beginning of the impeachment process and changed minds of Senators, but these are different times.
Cohen did provide a recording of a conversation with the President whether the President authorized the hush money to keep the two women quiet because of concern about the impact on the election and therefore was a campaign contribution that was was undeclared. .
What is the greatest danger to the rule of law was illustrated in the hold out of one juror in jury deliberations of the recent trilal of Paul Manafort in which he was found guilty of 8 of 18 counts. The Manafort defense counted on at least one like her to get their client off the hook. At least, that was one explanation for their not putting on witnesses and a rebuttal of the facts set forth in the paper documents.by the prosecution. She viewed the Trump line that the reason Manafort was prosecuted for tax and bank fraud was because a guilty finding with a long jail term would cause him to flip and become evidence for Mueller. Therefore the evidence was not as important as political loyalty. and therefore she had reasonable doubt of the evidence.
This shows that Trump's attempt to prejudice the jury pool (the voters in northern Virginia) with this line almost worked. The name of the president was not uttered due to a judge's instructions and agreement among defense and prosecution before the trial began, though the connection did show up in the documents. Her political assessment was probably correct, but it shows that Trump's devotees will dismiss any obvious evidence of a crime by the accused in their political loyalty to their Leader. As Trump himself noted, he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and his supporters would still be loyal. This is the greatest danger to the rule of law., At least in this first Manafort trial, the rule of law won out...for now. The final outcome depends upon the President's future actions.
The second greatest danger to the rule of law would be if Trump pardoned Manafort on the basis that in his own judgment, he was treated unfairly, ignoring the final jury verdict, the fundamental foundation of our legal system....the jury of peers..
Trump needs to respect the jury's findings, but if he wants to reward Manafort's loyalty for keeping his mouth shut on the Russian connection, commuting his sentence would be the better approach., though it could be seen as witness tampering if offered in advance. . The second trial yet scheduled for September is about Manafort's Russian connection in interfering in the November 2016 election, though the jury pool in Washington DC is viewed to be less sympathetic to the President. If the trial proceeds, and Manafort does not flip to become witness for the prosecution, offering either pardon or commuting the sentence in advance would be overt tampering with both the jury pool and the defendant.
.Assuming the president could be exempted from criminal prosecution while sitting in office, this could become another article of impeachment. The chance again that impeachment would ever result in his removal of office depends upon a 2/3 vote of Senators, highly unlikely to happen unless the spineless GOP Senate sees their poll numbers collapse. This happening is dependent on whether Mueller's report is so damning of the president himself that even some supporters get turned off. Trump is correct as he stated in an August 22 interview on Fox. about the Michael Cohen guilty plea that campaign finance violations nd his alleged direction of Cohen are "not a big deal". What he is implying this was not serious enough to motivate his supporters to abandon him. Covering up the Watergate break in and using campaign funds in order to influence an upcoming election got Nixon the beginning of the impeachment process and changed minds of Senators, but these are different times.
What is the greatest danger to the rule of law was illustrated in the hold out of one juror in jury deliberations of the recent trilal of Paul Manafort in which he was found guilty of 8 of 18 counts. The Manafort defense counted on at least one like her to get their client off the hook. At least, that was one explanation for their not putting on witnesses and a rebuttal of the facts set forth in the paper documents.by the prosecution. She viewed the Trump line that the reason Manafort was prosecuted for tax and bank fraud was because a guilty finding with a long jail term would cause him to flip and become evidence for Mueller. Therefore the evidence was not as important as political loyalty. and therefore she had reasonable doubt of the evidence.
This shows that Trump's attempt to prejudice the jury pool (the voters in northern Virginia) with this line almost worked. The name of the president was not uttered due to a judge's instructions and agreement among defense and prosecution before the trial began, though the connection did show up in the documents. Her political assessment was probably correct, but it shows that Trump's devotees are inclined to dismiss any obvious evidence of a crime by the accused. . As Trump himself noted, he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and he would not lose voters. This is the greatest danger to the rule of law., At least in this first Manafort trial, the rule of law won out...for now. The final outcome depends upon the President's future actions.
The second greatest danger to the rule of law would be if Trump pardoned Manafort on the basis that in his own judgment, he was treated unfairly, ignoring the final jury verdict, the fundamental foundation of our legal system....the jury of peers..
Trump needs to respect the jury's findings, but if he wants to reward Manafort's loyalty for keeping his mouth shut on the Russian connection, commuting his sentence would be the better approach., though it could be seen as witness tampering if offered in advance. . The second trial yet scheduled for September is about Manafort's Russian connection in interfering in the November 2016 election, though the jury pool in Washington DC is viewed to be less sympathetic to the President. If the trial proceeds, and Manafort does not flip to become witness for the prosecution, offering either pardon or commuting the sentence in advance would be overt tampering with both the jury pool and the defendant.
.Assuming the president could be exempted from criminal prosecution while sitting in office, this could become another article of impeachment. The chance again that impeachment would ever result in his removal of office depends upon a 2/3 vote of Senators, highly unlikely to happen unless the spineless GOP Senate sees their poll numbers collapse. This happening is dependent on whether Mueller's report is so damning of the president himself that even some supporters get turned off. Trump is correct as he stated in an August 22 interview on Fox. about the Michael Cohen guilty plea that campaign finance violations nd his alleged direction of Cohen are "not a big deal". What he is implying this was not serious enough to motivate his supporters to abandon him. Covering up the Watergate break in and using campaign funds in order to influence an upcoming election got Nixon the beginning of the impeachment process and changed minds of Senators, but these are different times.
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