From the NYT in July, 2016:

Mr. Manafort began working in Ukraine after the popular uprising in the winter of 2004-5 that became known as the Orange Revolution. Mr. Yanukovych, then prime minister, was declared the winner of a presidential election in 2004 that was marred by fraud and overturned by the country’s highest court after weeks of protests in favor of his pro-Western rival, Viktor A. Yushchenko.

Mr. Yanukovych had relied disastrously on Russian political advisers who underestimated voter frustration. After his defeat, he turned to American experts.

Mr. Manafort had begun working for one of Ukraine’s richest men, Rinat Akhmetov, to improve the image of his companies. Mr. Akhmetov was also a prominent sponsor of Mr. Yanukovych’s party, the Party of Regions, and he introduced the two men.

With Mr. Manafort’s advice, Mr. Yanukovych began a comeback, with the Party of Regions winning the biggest bloc in parliamentary elections in 2006 and again in 2007, returning him to the post of prime minister. At the time, Mr. Manafort called Mr. Yanukovych, a former coal trucking director who was twice convicted of assault as a young man, an outstanding leader who had been badly misunderstood in the West…

By 2010, Mr. Yanukovych’s revival was complete. He had won a presidential campaign against Ms. Tymoshenko, who was convicted of abuse of office and sent to prison.

Mr. Kopachko, the pollster, said Mr. Manafort envisioned an approach that exploited regional and ethnic peculiarities in voting, tapping the disenfranchisement of those who felt abandoned by the Orange Revolution in eastern Ukraine, which has more ethnic Russians and Russian speakers.

Remarkably, the article completely ignores the February 2014 Maidan Revolution, backed by the US State Dept. and ending with the removal of Yanukovych.  This began hostilities against the Donbass in eastern Ukraine, which has been successfully defended to this day by Russian general officers on leave and Ukrainian military veterans against neo-Nazi mercenaries trained and supported by NATO.

Say what you will about Manafort, but the Zionist neocons spent $5B deposing an elected president in their bid to sell off eastern Ukraine to Monsanto and goad Russia into war, neither of which have occurred.

These same bastards have since gone on to destabilize Libya and Syria, creating diasporas which threaten to ruin Europe.  Donald Trump and the Russians have since put an end to Hillary Clinton’s plans for the neocons.

From Andrew McCarthy, yesterday:

For someone to be guilty of laundering, the money involved has to be the proceeds of criminal activity before the accused starts concealing it by (a) moving it through accounts or changing its form by buying assets, etc., or (b) dodging a reporting requirement under federal law…

This count will thus fail if there is any doubt that the Ukrainian money was illegal under American law, that Manafort and Gates knew it was illegal, that they knew the work they were doing required them to register as foreign agents, or that it was their intention to promote a failure-to-register violation…

From President Trump’s perspective, the indictment is a boon from which he can claim that the special counsel has no actionable collusion case. It appears to reaffirm former FBI director James Comey’s multiple assurances that Trump is not a suspect. And, to the extent it looks like an attempt to play prosecutorial hardball with Manafort, the president can continue to portray himself as the victim of a witch hunt.

Manafort and Gates have since plead not guilty and a trial would give them an opportunity to explain their actions running up to the Ukrainian Revolution, during which Hillary Clinton was SecState and marshaling neocon forces.  Since Mueller’s case is weak, he will not be able to turn Manafort against Trump and will be forced to look elsewhere.

Which brings us to the Podesta brothers, whose penchant for creepy art and friends make them incredibly vulnerable to threats of prosecution unless they testify not against Trump, but the Clintons.  Tony Podesta’s resignation from his firm signals efforts, if not by Mueller, then the DOJ, to prove illegality regarding the fake Trump dossier and the UraniumOne deal.

Trump is having a really good week and it’s only Tuesday.