The shoe is now on the other foot.
Robert Mueller is used to being the one executing secret deals to get witnesses to flip on Donald Trump.
But this backroom agreement just spelled the end for Robert Mueller.
Rudy Giuliani – who is acting as Donald Trump’s lawyer – revealed to the New York Times that Kevin Downing – who is Paul Manafort’s lawyer – briefed him on what Mueller and his gang of angry Democrats were questioning his client about.
Manafort and Trump had a joint defense agreement in place before Mueller’s plea deal.
But they kept it in place after Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
And Giuliani said Mueller is pressuring Manafort to give up the goods on Trump.
“He wants Manafort to incriminate Trump,” Mr. Giuliani told the New York Times.
Mueller blew up Manafort’s plea deal in part because Manafort’s lawyers were still cooperating with Trump.
But keeping a joint defense agreement in place is not illegal.
Legal analyst Ross Garber told the Law and Crime blog that “prosecutors usually take a dim view of such agreements” and that prosecutors “believe you are either on Team USA or not.”
Critics also suspect that Mueller blew up the plea agreement because Manafort refused to lie about collusion with Russia.
Manafort’s lawyers keeping Trump’s team abreast of the special counsel’s unethical conduct was the genesis for a tweet Trump made last month.
He wrote:
The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want
Mueller’s real target is Donald Trump.
He needs evidence to present to Congress that Trump was in league with the Russians so the new Democrat majority can impeach him.
And Mueller doesn’t care if the “proof” is fabricated testimony.
Pundits speculated that Manafort kept his joint defense agreement in place with Trump in hopes of a possible pardon.
And Trump floated that possibility during an Oval Office interview with the New York Post.
“It was never discussed, but I wouldn’t take it off the table. Why would I take it off the table?” Trump told the New York Post.
Trump also ripped Mueller for pressuring witnesses to “flip.”
He said Mueller threatened them with jailtime if they told the truth about there being no collusion with Russia.
“If you told the truth, you go to jail,” the President explained.
“You know this flipping stuff is terrible. You flip and you lie and you get — the prosecutors will tell you 99 percent of the time they can get people to flip. It’s rare that they can’t,” Trump declared.
Many Americans would like to see Trump pardon Manafort as well as Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos.
None were charged with colluding with the Russians.
Their only crimes were supporting Donald Trump for President.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
