Thread by @RadioFreeTom

This is key. For people trying to figure out why Manafort's work is a big deal as it relates to Trump, remember this: When you read a story about this stuff, just replace "Yanukovich" with "Putin." Because that's how it worked. /1

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by @AlexLealWrites view original on Twitter

To deal with the Yanukovich regime was to be dealing with Putin and Russian intelligence. Manafort was a not a naif; he knew who he was really working for. /2

And because the Russians would know just how much money trouble Manafort was in, and how much of it was, how-you-say, ILLEGAL, they had him by the balls.
Now think about that. The top man in a presidential campaign was under the thumb of the Russian intel services. /3

In fact, the top man next to a possible president *and* his deputy, *and* several of the people in the candidate's family, *and* maybe even the candidate himself, all had dirty financial laundry known in detail to the Kremlin.
Normal people would worry about this. /4

At this point, Trump will have two choices about what to say:

1. I knew Manafort was dirty and that's why I hired him

2. I am hopeless incompetent and had no idea that the guy I've known for decades and who ran in the same financial dirty deal circles I did was dirty. /5

That is, Trump and his family can either say they were crooks, or they were too stupid to breathe without an instruction manual. These indictments don't leave much room for a third option. That's why all of this matters, even if there's "no collusion!" alleged in the docs. /6

In the better GOP I joined as a young man, this kind of entanglement with an enemy of the United States would have instantly ruled out any candidate for dog catcher. In today's GOP, so long as it triggers the libtards... well, what the heck. Patriotism is for saps, I guess. /7x