
Paul Manafort and Richard Gates Indictment [pdf] - uptown
https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download
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bertil
The language of the indictment is surprisingly legible (and blunt). This is a
welcome change in how legalese is usually used as obfuscation, or possibly in
anticipation of the many journalists and non-lawyers who would want to read
it.

~~~
minimaxir
This HN submission was flagkilled; I _vouched_ for it due to this reason.

Even though there is a political backdrop behind the investigation, there is
still a newsworthy process to the law-and-order of a special investigation.

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bischofs
Interesting that there is nothing here related to the campaign - just some
money laundering with Ukraine. Some would argue its outside the relevance of
what the special prosecutor was hired for (Russian interference in the
election).

Im guessing these charges are designed to scare Manafort into giving up the
bigger fish.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
Is this the only time they can file indictments? If not, they may have
additional charges in the works. I imagine they would have told the judge
"this is all we're planning to file" if they didn't have any other
investigative work going on, right?

~~~
alexggordon
At this point they have been indicted and charges have been filed (the link
this post points to). The steps for an investigation are very
straightforward[0], and so now that we're past the charging process, if
separate charges are found, it will result in another trial. I think it's
pretty rare for simultaneous trials to be going on though, just based on
anecdotal experience. It makes sense that prosecutors would want to wait to
see the outcome of the first trial before issuing more charges.

[0] [https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/steps-federal-
crimi...](https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/steps-federal-criminal-
process)

~~~
dragonwriter
> so now that we're past the charging process, if separate charges are found,
> it will result in another trial.

No, a superceding indictment can be filed to add, remove, or update charges.
The page you linked to has a good general introduction to the process, but you
are mistaken to conclude from it that once an indictment is filed it cannot be
altered, and that a separate parallel track would need to be opened up for new
charges.

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keymone
as a ukrainian that (mostly) lived through political perturbations in Ukraine
during 2003-2013, where connection between ex-president Yanukovich and
Manafort was widely known, it is almost baffling to now see connection between
Trump and Manafort. one would imagine somebody running for president of the US
would have been more careful picking his team.

when scam perpetrators and con artists get indicted, reasonable people stay
away from them or their future endeavors. Trump/Manafort for _me_ is the best
indication that the political campaign was full of shady business.

~~~
rdtsc
> one would imagine somebody running for president of the US would have been
> more careful picking his team.

This guy had his fingers in a lot of pies. Ukraine, Angolan rebels, Somalia.
He was also advising Reagan, GW Bush and Bob Dole's campaigns.

Good thing they got him. Less corruption the better.

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jonwachob91
Is there a legal/technical reason that Justice scanned the paper copy and
uploaded that as opposed to uploading the original digital file?

~~~
Munksgaard
I imagine it's because of the handwritten signatures at the end of the pdf.

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onesun
Why did this get flagged?

~~~
grzm
The simple reason is that enough HN members flagged it to trigger the
"[flagged]" tag. The deeper reason as to _why_ HN members flagged it is
tougher to answer as it involves speculation. I think it's likely because (a)
it's off-topic per the guidelines given that it's pretty much pure politics
and using the guidelines' heuristic of "if they'd cover it on TV news, it's
probably off-topic", this meets it; and (b) topics of this nature, regardless
of their importance are very rarely constructively discussed on HN. That's not
to say it's not worth discussing; some forums (virtual and otherwise) are
better suited for productive discussion of a particular topic than others. HN
members often flag such submissions even if they believe the topic is
important for just this reason.

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DonHopkins
The only reason for Trump to have ever hired Paul Manafort as his campaign
manager was to collude with Russia.

~~~
SirensOfTitan
Unsubstantiated claims like this pull the entire discussion down.

~~~
adamnemecek
Why did paul go to Russia before the election? It's not like an outlandish
claim considering we are discussing this on the thread about the guys
indictment.

~~~
SirensOfTitan
What point do you intend on making with this comment? Surely the burden of
proof is on the claimant? If you have evidence that Trump hired Manafort
strictly to collude with Russia, you may want to present it to Mueller's
special investigation unit.

