Lawsplainer: The Manafort/Gates Indictment | Hacker News Reader

Lawsplainer: The Manafort/Gates Indictment

popehat.com

38 pointsNatsu28 comments

Big stuff, but the George Papadopoulos plea deal may be the bigger story.

It seems like Papadopoulos is small fish here that will be used to get incriminating info on larger targets. He also confirms that this isn't just about taxes and money laundering when it comes to Manafort. And my guess is that Manafort isn't the final target of the investigation either.

Popehat has a separate "Lawsplainer" post on that:

https://www.popehat.com/2017/10/30/lawsplainer-the-george-pa...

As a lobbyist in DC I think an interest facet glazed over by many is the FARA filings. FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, is similar to the law which requires lobbyists (like me) to register with Congress. It tells the government who you are, whom you're lobbying for, money, etc.

FARA is rarely enforced, and LDA enforcement is almost nonexistent. Both carry stiff penalties, but I see LDA and FARA enforcement as this extra thing that if you really want to stick it to someone, charge them with failing to file. I know many, many, MANY companies, nonprofits (especially), and other organizations, that flagrantly violate the LDA laws without worry. Unless you're caught on something else, few pay attention, and few in the beltway care. It's time LDAs and FARA filings are enforced, investigated, and those that violate the law, charged.

Mueller is hitting Manafort with everything to provide maximum leverage to flip him. I just hope Mueller has considered bringing state charges somewhere if possible, because there is a very real chance Trump will try to use the pardon power to get out of this.

Why is there no mention of the manafort indictment on the front page? It seems like there's something blocking all posts about this...

From HN's posting guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

While this makes sense since this is not a political forum, I think the HN mods enforce this to a fault. Some political events are definitely big enough to warrant attention here.

It's likely not mods, it's likely just users hitting the 'flag' link.

If it gets killed and you disagree with that, use the 'vouch' link to vote for bringing it back.

Some basic level of karma is necessary for those two links to appear.

People really hate politics here. I would guess it's just organic flagging, nothing sinister.

It's also the sort of TV news that the guidelines recommend against.

There's really not that much to discuss, pretty much just speculation about where it all ends up.

Oh good heavens there's plenty to discuss:

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/files/17-mc-2336_MEM_O...

Having just read this, it seems to say the Special Prosecutor very directly says President Trump at the very least knowingly lied to the US Govt. about his relationships with Ukraine.

Is that your understanding as well?

Yes I also think it’s incredible that the court was convinced by redacted evidence to allow Mueller to question Target A and Target B’s attorney.

It appeared on the front page for me.

I've seen Popehat around, and in my mind I associate them with a partisan or at least ideological point-of-view. Is that fair? Who are they?

More info can be found on their about page:

https://www.popehat.com/about/

Most of the articles are from Ken, who is an expert on first amendment issues as well as a former assistant US attorney. You can find more info about him here:

http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/cross-ken-white-the-man-be...

The other major author is Patrick Non-White (Obvious pseudonym). Others are listed at https://www.popehat.com/author/ though most haven't been active in years. For example Clark split off to https://status451.com/ a while back when his views got too extreme for the rest.

They are libertarian so they generally align with more conservative / right viewpoints.

That being said, they seem to be fairly unbiased, in my view.

There are multiple authors there, actually. One of the more libertarian ones split off a while back. Ken is more liberal. They generally stick to the facts and avoid ideology in most articles.

This one is a pretty neutral explanation of the grand jury process that I think is quite informative for most people.

Ken blogs about Legal Things. We probably know of him from his "seriously, shut up!" post about talking to police/investigators, or his chronicling of the (karmatically satisfying) downfall of the people who would post their own porn torrents and then sue/blackmail people who torrented them. (If I recall right?)

He also spent a long time writing about various legal scams, chronicling the story as they happen (e.g. a mail fraud scam that he called out in 2011 and has been writing about for six years), with digestible non-lawyer-accessible explanations of things that are important or not-as-non-lawyers-might-expect.

I'm sure he has a bias, politically or ideologically, but I'm not sure I could articulate what it is. I like reading just about everything he writes.

Popehat remarked in his Papadopouslos Lawsplainer [0] today that had Papadopoulos not talked to the FBI back in January, he wouldn't be in the position he's in now.

[0] https://www.popehat.com/2017/10/30/lawsplainer-the-george-pa...

"they" is one guy, Ken White, a former federal prosecutor.

If he can be said to have a partisan/ideological PoV I would call it "mildly libertarian" but as a non-libertarian myself I read him avidly and don't consider him partisan.

I believe there are (or were?) other authors, I remember one in particular seeming a bit more extreme in his views (though nothing totally crazy by current political standards) while Ken seemed a bit more reasonable.

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