Like 99.44% of the folks at Daily Kos, I was overjoyed when Mueller won two felony indictments against Paul Manafort, whose malign influences have destroyed honest governments and ruined millions of lives across the globe.
I breathed the indictment in deep. Intoxicated by the fumes, I pictured a desperate, sweating Manafort offering everything he knew about Trump’s own crimes, in exchange for a plea bargain that would still put Manafort behind bars, so that democracies could be safer for a while.
After all, Mueller charged Manafort with two federal crimes; failing to register as an agent of a foreign power, and money laundering. The money laundering charges include dozens of incidents when Manafort essentially smuggled tainted money into the US via false wire transfers, without paying taxes.
Mueller also charged Manafort for failing to register as the agent of a foreign power. Manafort had covertly represented the interests of the former leadership of the Ukraine, before a popular uprising there forced Manafort’s clients to flee to Russia for their safety.
The foreign agent registration law was originally intended to force disclosure of foreign powers that were spreading propaganda in the US. Congress later amended the law to target people who lobbied for a foreign power without disclosing their backers. Its penalties range from a $5000 fine and 6 months in jail, to a $10,000 fine and five years in prison.
However, no person has ever gone to jail for violating this law since it was amended in 1966, if the online Department of Justice (DOJ)criminal resource manual is correct. The Department of Justice lost, or plea-bargained the last 3 prosecutions under this Act, and failed to even win indictments in two other cases. The DOJ more typically files a civil suit to force registration of the foreign agent, which DOJ’s done 17 times in recent years.
www.justice.gov/...
In other words, Manafort would likely face more jail time for poaching wildlife, than for failing to register as a destroyer of democracy in the Ukraine, despite his plain guilt.
Manafort won’t walk. He still faces monumental prison time for money laundering. No doubt Mueller’s got some additional false statements and tax evasion charges drafted up, just in case.
But the prosecution for violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act will probably disappear if Manafort begins serious plea-bargaining. That won’t mean the fix was in. It would mean that was a throwaway indictment in the first place.