(08-10-2018, 06:54 PM)JagNGeorgia Wrote:

(08-10-2018, 07:55 AM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote: One could consider Trump giving Mueller the boot from being the FBI director candidate then him being appointed to head the special council a few days later a conflict.

Agreed.

In the same way Sessions agreed to recuse himself because he got the job, Mueller should've recused himself because he didn't get the job.

(08-10-2018, 01:24 PM)mikesez Wrote: [

What part of "any matter that may arise directly from that investigation" do you not understand?
They sniffed around Manafort to find if he was in with Russians.  Evidence was lacking for that. But very quickly they found out he was a tax cheat, among other things.

I'm sure the legal basis for investigating it is solid, but he shouldn't even be interested in matters unrelated to collusion with Russian officials. Issues that happened years ago. Anyone with half a brain can tell you that they wanted to flip Manafort into squealing or providing testimony against Trump.

Sure, but tax fraud, if discovered, has to be prosecuted. 
Yes part of the motive initially was to get Manafort to flip but it's probably too late for that.  And it may be that Manafort had no evidence to offer against Trump or anyone else.  Once the evidence was collected and presented to him, and he still couldn't or wouldn't give them what they wanted, they had to follow through with the threats to prosecute.  Prosecutors can't make empty threats like that.
Manafort isn't being prosecuted for being Trump's associate.
He's being prosecuted for tax fraud.

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