Robert Mueller’s special counsel has issued its first charges after months of investigating alleged “Russian collusion” on the part of Donald Trump and his campaign staff. However, despite Trump’s opponents celebrating Mueller’s indictments, these specific charges have absolutely nothing to do with either Trump, Russian collusion or even the 2016 election itself.
Paul Manafort, who worked on Trump’s campaign for a brief period of 3 months during the summer of 2016, has been brought up on 12 charges of wrongdoing, all of which took place between 2006 and 2016. During this time period, Manafort was working on behalf of two lobbying firms, The Podesta Group and Mercury LLC, the former of which is headed by the brother of John Podesta (Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager and close associate), Tony Podesta.
Manafort has been indicted for laundering money, conspiracy, and issuing misleading statements to authorities along with several other charges, yet none of these accusations have anything to do with Donald Trump.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business associate, Rick Gates, have been indicted in a federal court on 12 counts, including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States, and making false and misleading statements.
Manafort turned himself in to the FBI field office in Washington on Monday morning.
There are no allegations of collusion with Russian operatives in the indictment, which was issued by a Washington grand jury on Friday and unsealed after Manafort’s arrest.
Manafort, 68, joined the Trump campaign last March as an adviser for the Republican convention. In May, the longtime Republican consultant was promoted to campaign chairman. He resigned in August after reports about his consulting work in Ukraine began to emerge in the press.
The charges center on Manafort’s and Gates’ involvement in an alleged money laundering operation utilizing offshore companies. Manafort and Gates, who were partners at the lobbying firm Davis Manafort, are also accused of hiding income from consulting work they did in Ukraine for a political party affiliated with Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former president.
Naturally, President Trump reacted to Manafort’s indictment on Twitter and correctly pointed out that the alleged crimes took place years before Manafort’s involvement with his campaign, as well as drawing attention to the mounting evidence involving Hillary Clinton’s and the Democrat’s involvement in corruption.
Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2017
In essence, Manafort’s indictment has nothing to do with Russian collusion, Donald Trump’s campaign or even the 2016 election. The crimes alleged by Mueller’s special counsel occurred between 2006 and 2014, many years before Trump even announced his candidacy, let alone events that occurred while Manafort was working for Trump. The announcement of this indictment has yet to have any impact on Trump’s presidency, and likely will only result in another wave of inflammatory headlines issued by the mainstream media.
However, this indictment has caused a Democrat operative and close associate of Hillary Clinton’s to step down from their position. Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta group and brother of Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, announced today he would leave his position due to Manafort’s indictment and the pending investigation into his firm’s dealings with him.
Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta Group, is stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.
Podesta’s decision to leave the firm came on the same day that former Donald Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were indicted on multiple charges, including money laundering, operating as federal agents of the Ukrainian government, failing to disclose overseas bank accounts and making false statements to federal authorities. Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, according to court records.
Despite anti-Trumpers on social media celebrating Manafort’s indictment, believing it’s the “first step” towards impeaching President Trump, the fact is these charges have nothing to do with Trump and the only causality thus far has been Tony Podesta, a long-time Democrat power-lobbyist. However, the mainstream media continues to spin salacious headlines in an effort to feed their ravenous anti-Trump base the fuel they need to continue their hatred of the president.
Even ABC’s correspondent Jonathan Karl admitted on twitter that the indictment of Manafort and his assistant has nothing to do with Trump, collusion or Trump’s campaign. In fact, Manafort’s indictment involves his dealings with the Ukraine, not Russia.
The timing of these charges against Manafort, which were largely expected and predicted by conservative media personalities such as Tucker Carlson, appear to have occurred just as the story regarding the Democrats and Clinton campaign funding the salacious “Trump dossier” was at its peak, which revealed the dossier to be nothing more than opposition research.
The question remains, if there was supposed to be a mountain of evidence pointing to Trump colluding with Russia to rig the 2016 election, than why has Mueller’s special counsel which has unlimited money and authority not come up with any actual charges relating to Trump or Russia? The answer may just be that President Trump is right again when he says this entire investigation is nothing more than a “witch hunt”. One would imagine that a team of 16 anti-Trump lawyers, who would love nothing more than to take down a sitting Republican president, would be utilizing any and all methods to achieve this goal as soon as possible.
The objective of Mueller’s special counsel, the Democrat establishment and the mainstream media remains in full effect, and that is to overturn the results of the 2016 election one way or another. Whether by the efforts of a special counsel made up largely of Clinton and Obama donors or by attempting to turn witnesses against Trump in order to damage the president’s administration, the establishment’s efforts will continue despite evidence leading to the Democrats and their own corruption.
In the end, the media will follow the same process as they have with every story regarding Trump and that is to warp, spin and distort any narrative that can be used to tarnish the president’s administration. In this case, however, the actual facts surrounding Manafort’s indictment appear to causing more headaches for powerful allies of the Democrats such as Tony Podesta than they are for close associates of President Trump.