Manafort Found Guilty. Cohen Pleads Guilty. Who's Next? @spockosbrain


Manafort Found Guilty. Cohen Pleads Guilty. Who's Next?

 By Spocko

 I'm not going to try to analyze the breaking news, there will be plenty of people who will do this
See these stories in the Rolling Stone:

Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty, Admits Trump Directed Election Influence

Paul Manafort Found Guilty on Eight Counts in First Major Russia Investigation Case

What I want to note is that these two cases SHOULD signal a change in how the media talks about this case. But there will be one group that will not, Fox "News."

People who advised the president during the election have been found guilty and have plead guilty of crimes related to the campaign. Who else could fit into this category? People at Fox News.

Recently Ellen at Newshounds pointed this out from Omarosa's book
Omarosa: Fox Sent Daily Talking Points, Spin Suggestions, Resources To Trump Campaign and this from Buzzfeed editor Tarini Parti.

Interesting tidbit from Omarosa's book on the Trump camp & Fox News: "...a select Trump campaign mailing list received daily emails directory from a producer at Fox News that summarized the news of the day, broke down talking points and spin suggestions, and officered resources."
— Tarini Parti (@tparti) August 15, 2018
offered**
Omarosa adds:
"People speculated that there was a relationship between Fox News and the Trump campaign, and that there were people at Fox working tirelessly to get him elected. To all those people, I can confirm that you have no idea just how right you were."
— Tarini Parti (@tparti) August 15, 2018
Federal election laws aren't only about money, some of them are about disclosure. Others are about providing assistance and reporting that assistance to the authorities.

What is the value of this Fox News producer's work?

 It's time to stop looking at Fox News as a legitimate news organization and start looking at them as a propaganda arm of the GOP. 

Should we start looking at individuals as unindicted co-conspirators in campaign election law violations?

We know who the producer is who has been feeding the Trump White House info. Who gave them their marching orders? Bill Shine is on the inside now, what was he doing before when he was on the outside at Fox? (Besides covering up sexual harassment for decades?)
Suzanne Scott, left, chief executive of Fox News who should know about the producer helping Trump. She is shown, in 2014, with the model Carol Alt and Bill Shine, a former co-president of the network who was forced out in 2017.Credit Larry Busacca/Getty

If people at Fox, like Suzanne Scott and Bill Shine, helped Trump in ways that violated FEC rules, who is going to investigate them? Legitimate media will probably defend them, because they want to believe Fox is legit, but as they can now see people are actually going to jail for violations. This are not just fines. Other news organizations might want to stop classifying Fox News as the media, when especially when Fox execs knowingly break the law.

 Hey Hey NRA, How Much Russian Money Did You Take Today?

The other organization, and set of individuals, to look at related to violating Federal election laws is the NRA. The NRA took money from foreign entities and used it to help Donald Trump and number of other Republicans.  (See my Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony Pulitzer award nominated video)


If Manafort's and Cohen's cases lead to FEC violations, shouldn't the groups and individuals who had similar violations also be charged?

Rachel Maddow pointed out last night that Maria Butina was moved to the same prison that held Manafort. But no reason was given why. Maybe it's because they both have reason to fear from Russian oligarchs and this is a safer place. 


Sometimes I think I don't believe anyplace is safe because of all the spy movies I watch.  Then I read about the poisoning of Russian spies in the UK. This stuff is real folks.

[Updated 4:06 pm from draft version.)