Thread by @Popehat

LAWSPLAINER. Okay. Let me try to do a less half-assed job of thoughts on Manafort's plea agreement. Meanwhile, consider this treatment by friend and classmate @MitchellEpner, as to whom #ff.

/1

https://twitter.com/MitchellEpner/status/1040685270394396672

/2 BIG POINT NUMBER ONE: In this DC agreement, Manafort pleads to two charges with a maximum 10 year penalty. He agrees to facts that support the government's Sentencing Guideline calculation, which starts at 210 months, much higher.

/3 What does that MEAN? Well, the Guidelines are only suggestions, but it means that even with respect to the DC conviction only, Manafort has a lot of cooperatin' to do before he starts making a difference on that sentence -- it's likely to max out at 10 years.

/4 BIG POINT TWO that I screwed up before: Manafort will still be sentenced on the VA conviction. He's admitted to the remaining VA counts -- the ones the jury hung on -- though he hasn't formally pled to them in VA, and it's not clear if he will.

/5 BUT: the government agrees to recommend that the DC and VA sentences will run concurrently to the extent they're based on the same facts. "Concurrent" means the sentences would run at the same time, so if he got two 10-year sentences he'd do only ten years, IF the judge agrees

/6 What does he face in VA? Well, it's a much higher ceiling, since he was convicted of a bunch of charges there. But one inference from these docs is that the guideline range there will be similar -- a 210 to 262 months recommendation.

/7 That means he could wind up with like 20 years from VA and 10 from DC, running at the same time. Hypothetically.

The way to get that number down is (a) cooperate so the government asks for it to go down, and/or (b) convince the judge to go lower than the guidelines.

/8 Manafort's pushing 70. If he wants to get out alive (remember that in general with good time you serve 85% of your federal sentence), he's gotta either convince the judges to be hella merciful or else cooperate up a storm.

/9 There aren't really any "tells" in the plea agreement or facts that point to where Manafort's cooperation will go, unlike Cohen's agreement, which pointed at the campaign and American Media. So who knows what he really has?

/10 Anyway, this represents an absolutely CRUSHING outcome for Manafort -- who, remember, is still in custody -- made palatable only by the utterly horrific array of alternatives available to him. /end