1/ After holding firm for months and through a first trial, Manafort finally decides to plead guilty and cooperate. Why now? Paul Manafort Agrees to Cooperate With Special Counsel, Pleads Guilty to Reduced Charges nyti.ms/2NaQo6V
2/ Certainly conviction in the Virginia trial and the looming DC trial persuaded him that absent a pardon, he would almost certainly spend the rest of his life in jail. But why did he give up waiting for a pardon, especially after @realDonaldTrump sent strong signals of support?
3/ Trump is famous for using people, turning on them, and showing them no loyalty, and Manafort knows this. So he must have realized that @realDonaldTrump could send signals that pardon coming, to keep Manafort in line, but then change his mind at any time and not deliver.
4/ Further, there is the problem of state charges. A pardon from @realDonaldTrump could wash away the federal charges against Manafort, but not state charges. So Manafort might have realized that a pardon, even if it ever came, would not necessarily save him from prison.
5/ One storyline of this investigation is that @realDonaldTrump has tried to keep the troops in line -- Flynn, Cohen, Manafort -- but one by one they are falling and turning on him. That is how federal criminal investigations often progress ....
6/ but it also raises question of whether the way @realDonaldTrump treats and uses people is coming back to haunt him.
