Manafort just got hit with a 32-count indictment: tax evasion, money laundering, bank fraud. So now we finally see the sort of indictment Mueller hands out to people who are not cooperating with the investigation, and ouch. So Manafort gets the choice: flip, rot in the pen, or force a nasty constitutional endgame that makes Trump look guilty as hell right as the election season is heating up?
Knowing how much Trump cares about other human beings, and how much Kool-Aid Manafort’s drunk, my money’s on #2.
Manafort’s misdeeds took place 2006-2015. It’s a long way from having anything to do with Trump.
What Manafort’s been charged with stems from that period. The timeframe of the leverage doesn’t have to match the timeframe of the information you’re trying to get. And Manafort doesn’t have to flip on Trump, he could flip on people even closer to Trump (his lawyer, his son-in-law). Mueller’s definitely going after this the way you go after organized crime. Lawyers are flipped, attorney-client privilege is invalidated.
To say he could flip assumes there is anything to flip on.
To say he’s been charged with 32 counts of financial crimes assumes he’s not a completely ethical person. Maybe he’ll go to trial and prove himself innocent. And maybe there’s nothing to flip on. I’m giving the same odds on both.