Conspiracy Against the United States
Manafort, Gates surrender at FBI’s Washington, DC field office
Today, Robert Mueller’s investigation hit a significant milestone. Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and a former member of the Republican National Committee, was indicted by a federal grand jury and was arraigned at federal court in Washington, DC, this afternoon. Manafort’s associate and fellow Trump team advisor, Rick Gates, has also been indicted. The sobering list of their potential crimes is led off by a particularly devastating charge: “conspiracy against the United States.”
This is not a charge that should be taken lightly, and would be issued only if the investigation had uncovered compelling evidence. And indeed, Manafort has a long and sordid history of working against US interests. In Ukraine, he worked as a consultant to the corrupt, pro-Russia Yanukovych regime, and financial records in the tax haven of Cyprus show that he had been in debt by over $17 million to Russia-affiliated parties, at the same time he was generously offering his services to the Trump campaign free of charge. As a career lobbyist, his job has always been to influence people and organizations on behalf of his client. If the Trump campaign wasn’t footing the bill, one might naturally wonder — who was the client?
In a second major development, it was revealed this morning that George Papadopoulos, another former Trump campaign advisor, pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI in early October. Papadopoulos had met repeatedly with a Russian professor with Kremlin connections in an effort to set up a meeting with the Trump campaign and Russian government representatives in order to obtain hacked information on Trump’s political opposition, and has admitted that he lied to the FBI about those conversations. This guilty plea should at least prove to even the most fervent Trump apologist that this is not, in fact, a “witch hunt” or a “hoax.”
Make no mistake — this is only the beginning of a difficult process. This past week, we had a taste of what is to come. Perhaps tipped off to Manafort’s indictment and Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, Donald Trump and his media allies have been fervently attempting to muddy the waters of public discourse, from drudging up a raft of accusations against Hillary Clinton to directly advocating for the resignation of Robert Mueller. This is a clear effort to insulate the Trump base from the reality that members of the Trump team are currently being charged with conspiracy against the United States, and that one has already pled guilty to lying about his role as intermediary between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. It is clear that the Trump administration and its allied media have little to no interest in the facts of this case, or in its implications for our democracy, and are only concerned with the power and fortune of one Donald J. Trump.
Despite their efforts, the law remains the law. Stand Up Republic has always supported an unbiased and non-partisan investigation into the Trump-Russia relationship, and we will continue to support Robert Mueller and his team until their work is concluded. To that end, we recently signed on to a letter to Congress to establish benchmarks for the congressional investigations, and have continued to advocate for the independence and security of the special counsel probe. We do not consider this a political issue. This is a test of the sanctity of our democratic institutions, an affirmation of the rule of law in our country, and a matter of national security. We look forward to the continued work of the special counsel, and encourage all Americans to allow it to reach its conclusions free from political influence, intervention, or obstruction.
