The WA Post-reported Manafort emails do NOT exonerate him, they add to his guilt.

[pnwmom]

The fact that Manafort rejected earlier meetings with the Russians does not exonerate him. It shows that when he went into the June 9th meeting with Kushner and Junior, he had already been informed about how problematic it was.


http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-russia-emails-devastating-legal-papadopoulos-paul-manafort-2017-8

Manafort's rejection stands in contrast to his willingness to accept a meeting with a Russian lawyer weeks later in June, a point that Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, raised after the story broke.

Mariotti wrote in a series of tweets that perhaps the most important implication of the news was that "everyone on those emails was aware of the concerns expressed in the emails about meeting with Russians, including Admiral Kubic's concern about the legality of meeting with Russia."

"If anyone on those emails later met with Russians or accepted aid from them," Mariotti continued, "the prior emails about concerns could be used to indicate that they knew that the meeting was problematic and potentially illegal but nonetheless persisted."

[WheelWalker]

1. Eggs-actly

[bettyellen]

2. To me it looks like they tightened the CC list up when they went forward- so those who expressed

Concern were possibly left in the dark over it?

[kentuck]

3. Yep!

they are planting these stories, it seems to me?

[pnwmom]

5. I think the WH probably leaked the stories, thinking it would help exonerate Manafort.

But instead it makes him look even guiltier.

[Sanity Claws]

4. Does it show that Manafort was a double agent?

He didn't go forward with the meetings earlier when the others pointed out the problems.

However, he went to the meeting when the Trump boys and Kushner wanted to have a meeting and did not even think of consequences. He could have told the Trump boys and Kushner of the legal problems but chose not to. Was he playing this in order to get compromising materials for Putin to use? Seems to me that Manafort was a Putin plant but Trump was too stupid to notice or too far in already to say no to Manafort.