Cohen, & Manafort: The Art of Self-Incrimination.
Last week, Paul Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in Federal prison on five counts of tax fraud, one count of hiding foreign bank accounts and two counts of bank fraud (that’s when you falsify statements to get a loan). Prosecutors wanted 25 years, which would have essentially amounted to a life sentence. They may yet get their way since Manafort is due for another sentencing hearing.
My reaction? Doesn’t affect my life one bit. To be candid, Manafort is a criminal and his activities are an affront to the rest of us who play by the rules. My issue is that he should have plenty of company, and he won’t.
Third-World Gangster Politics Hit Our Shores.
Manafort’s crimes, while real, are not the reason he is losing his freedom. Let’s review a little recent history: By March of 2016, Donald Trump either was or was not the presumptive nominee for the Republican Presidential nomination, depending on who you asked.
The Trump Train was hurtling down the rails with an enthusiasm matched only by Bernie Sanders and his supporters. Like Sanders, Trump’s campaign was feverishly collecting primary votes. Both campaigns were operating outside the establishment, and both campaigns faced the challenge of turning those votes into delegates. Sanders, confronted with the Democrat Party’s super delegate system faced an impossible barrier. Trump, not so much. Enter, Paul Manafort.
A political insider and a campaign veteran, Manafort was brought into Trump’s campaign to navigate the legal and systematic labyrinth of Republican Party rules. Did you think we were still operating under one person, one vote? Yeah, so did I.
Manafort’s real crime in the eyes of the establishment? He was successful. Had he never associated himself with the Trump Campaign, his crimes would have continued to be ignored. We know this, because the Department of Justice told us.
Manafort’s other crime? Failing to provide prosecutors with Donald Trump’s head.
This in spite of flapping his gums during 50 hours of interviews.
And Speaking Of Not Being Able To Keep Quiet…
In April last year the FBI raided the offices of Michael Cohen, one of Donald Trump’s personal attorneys. In what the rest of us non-lawyers thought was an inexplicable violation attorney-client privilege, thousands of pages of sensitive information were seized and handed over to prosecutors.
OK, got it. The world has changed. Or maybe it hasn’t. Maybe the world was always this way and we’ve just had the blindfold ripped off.
But that’s not even the most vexing thing about this farce. What really I really find disturbing is the speed by which these two men, seared and hardened by the political landscape talked.
In my family and among my associates I have a retired Federal agent, one police lieutenant, one police captain, a couple of police sergeants, and a detective. If you have relatives, or close associates in law enforcement the subject of arrests and interrogation is going to come up. They have all told me, independently of each other, “if you are ever arrested, don’t try to talk yourself out of it. Keep your mouth shut.” Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut.
“But I don’t have anything to hide.” Said the stupidest people to ever walk the Earth.
Show me the man, I’ll show you the crime.
To me, it’s mystifying that anyone who has been imbedded in the criminal justice system for decades would sing like a warbler in the spring.
‘I know detectives that can get you to confess to things you have never done. Things you didn’t even know were illegal. Men who have a firm grasp on human nature. They know everyone wants to tell their story. People want to be liked, they want the approval of those in authority. Everyone wants to talk. Good interviewers know how to exploit this. Once they get you talking, a good investigator will get you to betray your employer, your business partners, and the ones you love. Especially the ones you love.’ – Amalgamated Source.
And this is Michael Cohen’s pathetic legacy. During his February 27th testimony, Cohen presented the public with someone who betrayed everyone, and realized it too late. We saw a man flailing about trying to convince us that he had the greater good (or something) at heart.
One of the ironclad rules of the Human Experience is that no one abides a traitor. Contempt will always be their lot for the rest of their lives. No one will ever trust them again. For them is reserved the special damnation of living out their remaining days sitting in a soup of self-pity, playing over events in an endless loop of regret and the mantra of “if only.”
Self-control is the chief element in self-respect and self-respect is the chief element in courage. –Thucydides
Speaking of self-respect…
Former F.B.I. agent G. Gordon Liddy, occasionally referred to as “The Man of Steel,” was the only man to come out of the Watergate Scandal looking cool. And why? Because he kept his mouth shut. The court sentenced Liddy to 20 years for conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping and began serving his sentence in early 1973. This sentence was latter commuted to 8 years by President Carter. Liddy was paroled after 4 ½ years, and has since enjoyed a career in acting, publishing, broadcasting, and security consulting.
I don’t consider Liddy a hero or even a particularly good guy. What he is though, is a man who kept his self-respect. Putting aside the lucrative career he enjoyed post-Watergate, self-respect is it’s own reward.
Wrapping It Up.
Keeping one’s mouth shut, not trying to throw anyone else under the bus to save yourself, in short, maintaining your self-respect.
Clearly, something of which we need to remind ourselves.
Selah.
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