Flipper! Plus: An update on Kavanaugh' accuser

If not for the hurricane, this would be a pretty good day. Unfortunately, many liberals are missing the bad news...

However, a source close to the defense told POLITICO, "the cooperation agreement does not involve the Trump campaign. ... There was no collusion with Russia."

Of course, Cohen did not enter into a cooperation agreement -- yet he is now cooperating, and apparently has been for a while.

In recent weeks, it has also become common knowledge among close friends of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, that Cohen is talking to the Mueller team, according to people familiar with the situation.

Fortfeiture of assets plays a big role in the Manafort deal. Marcy Wheeler has been, perhaps, the only person paying sufficient attention to that angle. I hope she won't mind if I quote her at length:

And at this point, the deal is pardon proof. That was part of keeping the detail secret: to prevent a last minute pardon from Trump undercutting it.

Here’s why this deal is pardon proof:

Mueller spent the hour and a half delay in arraignment doing … something. It’s possible Manafort even presented the key parts of testimony Mueller needs from him to the grand jury this morning. The forfeiture in this plea is both criminal and civil, meaning DOJ will be able to get Manafort’s $46 million even with a pardon. Some of the dismissed charges are financial ones that can be charged in various states.

Remember, back in January, Trump told friends and aides that Manafort could incriminate him (the implication was that only Manafort could). I believe Mueller needed Manafort to describe what happened in a June 7, 2016 meeting between the men, in advance of the June 9 meeting. I have long suspected there was another meeting at which Manafort may be the only other Trump aide attendee.

At this point, I must sound my usual ominous notes.

First: Yes, Manafort will lose millions, pardon or no pardon. What of it? As I've said before, Putin and the 'garchs can kiss that wound and make it all better. Hell, Manafort can be recompensed with less than one-tenth of the wildly inflated price paid for that dubious Salvator Mundi by quote "Leonardo" unquote.

Second: Marcy does not directly address the bit quoted above. Once again:

However, a source close to the defense told POLITICO, "the cooperation agreement does not involve the Trump campaign. ... There was no collusion with Russia."

Is this source talking BS? Maybe. It's hard to imagine why Mueller would make a deal with Manafort which does not cover the campaign. I mean, that would be like visiting the Louvre just to admire the flooring.

This just in: MSNBC is now reporting that Manafort has completely folded. So that "source" must have been trying to put a positive spin on a bad sitch.

Third: Have the other cooperation agreements been game-changers? Papadopolous was a fucking disaster, no two ways about it. He gets all of fourteen days, and now he's giving lip service to whatever inane conspiracy theory Trump wants him to pretend to endorse. The Michael Flynn "flip" was a big damned deal for a while, but soon enough Sean Hannity and others declared him a victim and were calling for his rehabilitation. I've seen no hint of contrition in any tweet by Flynn Jr. Looks to me as though Flynn the elder is stonewalling, agreement or no agreement.

The only "flipper" who seems to have developed a genuine dislike for Donald Trump is Michael Cohen.

There is much more to say on the Manafort flip -- and of course, I will have a lot to say about Kavanaugh. Back soon.

Update on Kavanaugh:  We now know that Mystery Letter includes an allegation of attempted rape, and that DiFi has been sitting on the letter since June. You know damned well that if the parties were reversed, the Republicans would never sit on such a letter. Nevertheless, the disgusting propagandists at The Federalist are talking about "Feinstein's smear letter." Good lord, can anyone out there actually be so stupid as to believe that crap?

I've been looking into a sub-mystery: Which high school did the girl attend? Let's first look at this Josh Marshall summary...

Here’s something that caught my eye in the new Kavanaugh controversy about an alleged sexual assault while he and the alleged victim were in High School in the 1980s. Kavanaugh went to an elite DC preparatory school, Georgetown Preparatory School, in Bethesda, Maryland. It was an all-boys school. So no female students. The New Yorker article says the alleged victim “attended a nearby high school.”

The letter of support signed by 65 women who knew Kavanaugh at the time notes this: “Almost all of us attended all girls high schools in the area.” Unless the public school system in suburban Washington was very different than I think, that must mean that almost all the signatories went to private schools. Few and maybe none went to public schools.

I've checked out Georgetown Prep. Geographically, its right across the street (the street being Rt. 355) from an arts center called Strathmore -- and just east of that is a Catholic girls' high school called the Academy of the Holy Cross. This is the only high school of any sort that I can find nearby. It appears that the students at Georgetown Prep and the Academy of the Holy Cross tend to socialize with each other.

I'll bet you a donut that Kavanaugh tried to force himself on a Catholic schoolgirl. Uniform and all. They wear grey skirts at that school, not the plaid skirts you're probably envisioning.

By the way: Sixty-five girls testified to Bret Kavanaugh's good character in high school? Even though he went to an all-boy's school? COME OFF IT.

First: The mere existence of that letter proves that Team Trump knew about that "smear" letter long before we mere Dems did. That's a smear?

Second: I went to a normal public high school in the San Fernando Valley, and I strongly doubt that five female classmates retained any memory of me.

(There was a lovely, freckle-faced redhead named Karen D. whom I recall very well. I finally worked up the courage to ask her out on the day of our graduation. Just before I could make the big ask, she told me that her family was leaving for Arizona the next morning. Then she hugged me goodbye, a hug that told me everything I ever needed to know about lost opportunity and roads not taken. I would like to believe that she recalls me from time to time. Carpe diem, my friends.)