The Daily Recounting 8/20/18

We’re doing this again?

Yeah, but in the FAQ format. I feel it’s more conducive to information.

Not because it’s easier than writing paragraphs like a big boy?

No. Definitely not.

Gotcha.

Just read your part, please.

Lazy bastard. Ahem. What the fuck happened today?

Everyone’s going to jail.

Everyone?

No. Two guys.

That’s not even close  to “everyone.”

I’m not going to fight with you all night. Just ask questions about politics.

Who’s going to jail?

Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.

What for?

So, so, so many things. These two were criminal polymaths. Y’know how Sammy Davis Jr. could sing and dance and act and play a bunch of instruments? Like that, but for corruption. Jacks of all shadiness. Dirty deeds.

Done dirt cheap?

Oh, no. The opposite. Each crime was for a sum that 99% of humanity won’t earn in a lifetime. High-end crimes. But not classy high-end crimes like cat burglary; tacky shit like submitting falsified income statements to banks, or declaring earnings as a loan (that coincidentally gets forgiven). Or paying off porn stars that you didn’t even get to fuck.

Let’s do this one at a time.

Speaking of porn stars. HEY-OH!

Don’t do that.

You’re right. Let’s start with Paul Manafort.

Who’s he?

Ever see The West Wing?

Yes.

Paul Manafort is the opposite of The West Wing. He’s everything that’s venal, sleazy, brutal, and corrupt about Washington, D.C. in a $5,000 suit that still, somehow, looks like shit. He’d steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes.

You’re not making him sound worse than anyone else in that city.

He was partners with Roger Stone.

Eww. 

Yeah. He lobbied for the worst humans on the planet. African warlords and Baltic dictators; if Doctor Doom were a real person and Latveria were a real place, then Manafort would have introduced him to the right people. (For millions of bucks, of course.)

Anyone I would have heard of?

Mobotu Sese Seku. Jonas Savimbi. Ferdinand Marcos.

Those are all terrible people.

No, no. Just misunderstood. Anyway, after the Soviet Union broke up, Paul went hard into the formerly-red paint. Hooked up with a guy named Victor Yankovych from Ukraine, who was bankrolled by an oligarch named Oleg Deripskaya.

When do the Brothers Karamazov become involved?

Focus. Ukraine has had one question before it since regaining its independence: Do we dance with Europe or Russia? Well, those Moscow girls always made Victor sing and shout, and Paul helped him win the presidency in an election about which the U.N. said “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” Ukraine has to this day been dealing with the ramifications and also the tanks that Putin keeps sending. Honestly, the tanks are worse than the ramifications.

What does this have to do with anything?

Trust the process. So: while Paul’s fucking up another country’s shit, this guy Deripskaya is getting his hooks into him. Lending him money and fronting him on investment opportunities which (wouldn’t you know it) go south. By 2014, the back of the envelope has him down $17 million and this is not like owing the bank or the IRS $17 million. You truly do not want to owe a Russian oligarch $17 million. Anyway, Paulie’s avoiding Oleg and scrambling around trying to: A, find some cash to pay off his debts; and B, maintain himself in a certain lifestyle. What he’d really like is for one big score that would put him even AND get him back in the good graces of Moscow. And then along comes Donny and the rest is history. Well, it’s testimony.

What was he tried for, specifically?

Manafort, a fixture in Republican politics for decades, was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, one count of failure to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts and two counts of bank fraud. A mistrial was declared in three counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, and seven counts of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy. – NBC News, 8/20/18

So lazy.

Fuck off.

He going to jail?

Oh, yeah. If he doesn’t get murdered first. At least seven years from today’s verdict.

Today’s?

Paul Manafort will be going on trial again in a few weeks, this time for illegal lobbying and money laundering.

Cruel summer.

Bananarama always got it right.

What about Michael Cohen?

Oy vey. This gonif. Michael Cohen plead guilty in federal court to eight counts. Everything from campaign fund fraud to not reporting income to goldfish rape.

He raped a goldfish?

Y’know what? Why the fuck not at this point? It’s no weirder than any of the rest of today’s news.

And how long is he going to jail for?

That depends. If he keeps his mouth shut? Maybe 65 years.

That is very many years.

Longer than the vast majority of my direct ancestors were alive. It would basically be a life sentence.

What if he does talk?

Less than that.

Okay, but how does this affect the president?

Cohen testified as part of his plea that he was personally directed by Basketball Head to pay off two women with campaign funds. The President of the United States is now implicated in a conspiracy to commit fraud.

So we arrest him now, right?

Oh, no.

Why the fuck not?

For the same reasons the Twin Towers came down on 9/11: a failure to imagine catastrophe. Just like the World Trade Center’s architects couldn’t foresee a jumbo jet slamming into the building at full throttle, the framers of the Constitution didn’t dream that someone so brazenly corrupt would ever hold the Executive office. Which is why they made it exceedingly tough–if not impossible–to charge the president with a crime. It might not even be legal to subpoena a sitting president.

Might not?

I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but we’re in uncharted depths here. None of this bullshit has happened before.

What about Richard Nix–

DO NOT COMPARE DONALD FUCKING TRUMP TO RICHARD NIXON! NIXON WENT TO CHINA!

…

Sorry.

You feel strongly about this.

It’s a glib and shallow comparison that is rejected by serious thinkers, and also me.

Anything else happen today?

Duncan Hunter’s going to jail.

Who’s he?

Douchebag Congressman from San Diego. Turnip’s second major endorsement.

Who was his first?

Chris Collins from upstate New York.

What’s he up to now?

Also going to jail.

“But her e-mails.”

Yup.