Manafort seeking a deal with Mueller?

Posted on: September 12, 2018 at 13:40:32 CT

For a time, Paul Manafort may have been holding out for a presidential pardon. Donald Trump teased the possibility last month, in the wake of Manafort’s conviction on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, praising his former campaign chairman as “brave” for refusing to “break” under pressure, he called the case against him “very sad” and a “disgrace.” “He believes [Manafort] has been mistreated,” Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told reporters. But given the harrowing political realities facing the president, in the form of Robert Mueller’s probe and a potential Democratic takeover of the House, a pardon was never a safe bet. And so, as he awaits the start of a second trial in D.C., and the realities of taking the stand as a convicted felon have sunk in, Manafort appears to have had a change of heart.

Less than a week before jury selection is scheduled to begin in Washington, Manafort is reportedly in talks with special counsel Mueller’s office about a potential plea deal, The Washington Post reported late Tuesday. The details of the negotiations are unclear, and whether Mueller would be willing to cut a deal with Manafort remains an open question, according to the Post. But that the defendant is engaging on the issue at all marks a sharp shift in his position. (Both Jason Maloni, Manafort’s spokesperson, and Peter Carr, Mueller’s spokesperson, declined the Post’s request for comment.)

Perhaps the most tantalizing question raised by the Post’s reporting is the possibility that Manafort is trying to scare Trump into action. Earlier this summer, at the start of the Alexandria trial, Manafort’s defense attorney Kevin Downing flatly asserted there was “no chance” of cutting a deal with the special counsel. But the fact that Manafort, unlike the other ex-Trump campaign officials ensnared in the Mueller probe—George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, and Rick Gates—chose not to do so, despite having the greatest legal liability, has long been a source of curiosity. It’s possible that the guilty verdict served as a wake-up call for his legal team. Although Manafort was only found guilty of 8 of the 18 criminal counts he faced, former Illinois federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told me that the takeaway was unambiguous: “As a practical matter, he has completely lost in this trial.” Coupled with the claim from a Trump-supporting member of the jury that the mistrial on the remaining 10 counts was the result of a single holdout, it was unlikely that Manafort’s team was optimistic heading into round two. Indeed, after the verdict, Downing changed his tune, telling reporters that his client was “evaluating all of his options at this point.”