I think they simply didn’t want the last thing for the jury to see to be the grumpy judge ragging them about their flimsy defense.

But,

Manafort is put on trial.

Trump pardons him.

That counts as Manafort confessing to the crimes.

And then he gets put on trial for OTHER stuff, bolstered by the fact that he previously admitted to the other crimes.

Because he has basically already admitted guilt, so nothing he can say can incriminate him. Not a lawyer here, just from what I've heard on panel discussions

not because of any notion of admitted guilt, but simply because after a pardon he no longer faces criminal liability for the pardoned offenses.

so he can't use the 5th to avoid answering a question if the answer might tend to incriminate him specifically in pardoned crimes.

he stlll can use the 5th if the answer might tend to incriminate him in state-level crimes or in other federal crimes not covered by the pardon.

first, pardons can be and have been granted in cases where the court system convicted an innocent person, most notably in cases involving dna identification technology not available at the original trial. it makes zero sense to insist that an innocent person must admit guilt in order to accept a pardon to fix a travesty of justice.

second, the supreme court mentioned this in a case where a pardon was granted against the recipient's will in order to compel testimony (by bypassing the 5th amendment protections against self-incriminating testimony). the supreme court used the notion that accepting the pardon would be an admission of guilt as part of a rationale for reaching the conclusion that someone could refuse a pardon (because therefore it wasn't "for free" and so couldn't be thrust upon someone unwilling).

imho, this wasn't needed to decide that particular case (burdick v. united states) and in any event there's no reason to think the notion that "accept a pardon is an admision of guilt" extends to all pardon cases.

third, it's in no way a confession to any particular crimes or facts.

It was part of the decision but not needed to decide the case and dicta ("obiter dicta&quot is not precedent. In my opinion a pardon nullifies the acts pardoned as though they never occurred.

1. Those people were not innocent. They were innocent until proven guilty and they were proven guilty. The pardon was for a person that had been declared guilty in a legal trial.

2./3. It does not count as a confession to criminal acts in a legal sense. But it counts as an admission of guilt in a moral sense (as SCOTUS said) and that could be used by a prosecutor when it comes to establishing whether the accused has a criminal mindset.

in any event it's not at all convincing. if someone is pardoned they can have all kinds of reasons and incentives to take it even if they're completely innocent, so accepting a pardon doesn't establish a criminal mindset for anything else.

oh, he was on death row for a crime he didn't commit and insists he didn't do, but he accepted a pardon once dna evidence cleared him, therefore he has a criminal mindset so you should find him guilty of this other crime? that's a ridiculous argument.

so they were in fact innocent, the court system erred in deeming them otherwise.

It's "innocent until proven guilty."
And then "guilty until proven innocent."

It's not "innocent-until-proven-guilty-but-not-really-they-are-still-somehow-innocent."

If a court declared them guilty, they turned from innocent to guilty. If they were later exonarated with new evidence, they turned from guilty to innocent. Simple as that.

pardons can be granted to people who were wrongly convicted, and in such cases, it doesn't make sense to say that accepting the pardon is any kind of admission of guilt.

doesn't matter what the reason is. point is, if a president (or governor in case of a state crime) pardons someone, it's perfectly reasonable and normal in many situations for the person who accepts the pardon to say that they were wrongly convicted, never committed the acts of which they were accused, etc.

to say that accepting a pardon carries an admission of guilt is clearly something that doesn't make sense in such cases.

it's just more obvious in cases where there was a conviction years ago, then dna evidence proves someone else did it, or even proves that the accused was miles away at the time, and the president then says "i'm pardoning this person because i've reviewed the case and i've determined that they were actually innocent." how can you then say the accused person then is admitting guilt by accepting their ticket out of prison?

as your quote says, "ordinarily". pardons are typically granted for reasons of mercy or forgiveness, change in health, etc.

pardons for people who maintain their innocence are rare, but it happens.

just a few weeks away. In the meanwhile Manafart will be cooling his heels in the slammer. He should be used to it by now.

There is precious little defense beyond ignorance, which would be hard to "prove". The mountain of documentation was against him, and the only defense was either ignorance or indifference. And there was some documentation to argue against both of those defenses. His best bet was to allow the jury to rest upon his presumption of innocence and evaluate whether the prosecution had proven otherwise. Furthermore, he has other trials to face and he didn't need to get into a position where he was providing more evidence against himself with his testimony.

Can he be pardoned for those charges also? Even before he goes to trial?

By definition pardon is forgiving the crime proven in a court of law. No guilty verdict yet in the 2nd trial so pardon is premature.

Examples:

Pres Ford pardoned Nixon who had not been indicted nor tried.

Pres Carter pardoned draft resisters many of whom had not been tried nor convicted

Pres Bush the first pardoned Casper Weinberger who had been indicted for Iran Contra related offenses.

Either way, he is fucked. t-rump may be stacking the courts and paying off and or threatening judges, but most are following the law and Constitution, something the GOPers want to destroy and create their own.

New York AG will indict and convict him. Nothing trump can do and manafort dies in a New York State prison.

Schneiderman is gone. Anderson's term is up in December. She is not running for reelection. No one has a clue who might win the primary.

It was very public that Schneiderman is investigating Trump. There is no guarantee that will continue.

I expect they are still around ready to be opened up when the next attorney general is elected. It is highly unlikely NY will elect a Trump syncophant. JMHO and YMMV

that proves Manafort was up to his eyeballs in tax evasion and bank fraud.

Manafort’s lawyers didn’t put on a formal defense because they don’t have one. JMHO of course

Clemency for crimes he's convicted of doesn't remove legal jeopardy from un-prosecuted crimes, that the state may or may not know about, and may or may not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. He can still invoke the 5th amendment.

And people here forget that Manafort is on trial for shit that doesn't directly involve Trump. Most of this stuff occurred before Trump began his campaign. Even if Manafort is convicted, that doesn't necessarily mean Trump is next.

Manafort has to have evidence of a prosecutable crime, and he has to be willing to testify to that. I find it difficult to believe that Manafort has compromising information on Trump and has kept it hidden up to this point. Is it reasonable to assume that?

The fact that Mueller wants to interview Trump before he has any such info from Manafort is telling.

Mueller has it

Not till after the next trial

...and he'd lose protection from testifying in other cases, with perjury right back on the table.


Volokh:

A person may refuse to testify, even when subpoenaed, on the grounds that the testimony may expose him to criminal liability. But if the prospect of criminal liability disappears — whether because he has been granted adequate immunity by prosecutors, or because he has accepted a presidential pardon — then the privilege against self-incrimination also disappears. “If the witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his privilege, since he stands with respect to such offence as if it had never been committed.” Brown v. Walker (1895); see also, e.g., Nixon v. Sampson (D.D.C. 1975) (yes, that Nixon). (Remember that, as with President Richard Nixon, a pardon can preclude future criminal prosecutions, and not just erase past ones.)

2. Of course, that only works to the extent that the pardon does indeed foreclose the possibility that your testimony will be used against you in a criminal prosecution. A presidential pardon, for instance, only applies to federal crimes; if the conduct could also be prosecuted as a state crime, the witness can refuse to testify about it. The same is true if a governor pardons someone for committing a state crime, but there remains a risk that the person could be prosecuted by the federal government for the same conduct.

not to have put on a case based on the hope for a pardon. The defense was crappy because they just didn't have much of a case. However, the defense might have been good enough for a hung jury.