(Optional Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Once and for all, let's dispel with this fiction that Paul Manafort is an international criminal mastermind. From The New York Times:

In court documents, prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said that violated the terms of Mr. Manafort’s release while he awaits trial. They asked a federal judge to revise those terms or send him to jail until trial.



Prosecutors said that Mr. Manafort tried to contact witnesses by phone, through an intermediary and through an encrypted messaging program. One witness told the F.B.I. that Mr. Manafort was trying to “suborn perjury,” prosecutors said. Two witnesses provided the texts to the F.B.I., which also searched Mr. Manafort’s cloud-based Apple account, according to court records.

So, you’re Manafort, OK, and you know that Mueller’s got you in a leghold trap for the rest of your life and that you’re extraordinarily lucky not to be enjoying the concierge level of the Graybar Hotel. So, naturally, because you are an international criminal mastermind, you decide to tamper with Mueller’s witnesses in a clumsy and easily detectable manner. Back during Watergate, Howard Hunt’s attorney, a respected Washington lawyer (and a fellow Marquette Warrior) named William O. Bittman, was driving around Washington with cash for the burglars’ defense in a brown paper bag. Compared to Manafort, Bittman was Professor Moriarty.

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I mean, who does this? A guy confident of an eventual pardon? Maybe, but this seems like an awful lot of purgatory to bring on yourself on the way to heaven. Mueller’s people are authentically furious, and they’re pretty dogged when they’re just doing their jobs with cool professional dispatch.

Prosecutors say that was part of a secret lobbying campaign in the United States. Mr. Manafort argues the lobbying was focused on the European Union—a key point in his defense. In court documents, prosecutors accused Mr. Manafort of trying to reach members of a public relations firm who could get word to the Europeans and help shape their story. “They should say their lobbying and public relations work was exclusively in Europe,” one of the public relations officials told the F.B.I. according to court documents. Prosecutors provided the judge a summary of contacts that they said were made from February to April, while Mr. Manafort was under house arrest on a $10 million bond.

House arrest, dude. All the time you need to binge-watch, nap, read some good books, listen to the complete works of Mozart, or Coltrane, or the 1910 Fruitgum Company, or, even, maybe, you know, work with your lawyers on your legal defense? Me? If I were in Manafort’s wingtips, “Find A New And Obvious Way To Allegedly Obstruct Justice” would not have been at the top of my to-do list. But, apparently, it was the second item on Manafort’s, right below “Be Really Stupid Again.”

Save us, Moron Gods. You’re our only hope.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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