They filed the thing under seal, stating that they were doing so to avoid any issues that might arise with inadvertent non-redaction. The court could unseal it after review of the document. The court reviewed it, and unsealed it.

So, you see, it wasn't even Manafort's defense which unsealed it - it was the court. Now, you certainly can't blame Manafort's defense for a mistake the court made, can you?

They had "an abundance of caution".

Everyone is reading the brief and ignoring the motion filed with it:

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.469.0_2.pdf

Out of an abundance of caution, Mr. Manafort has attempted to conform his redactions to
the Office of Special Counsel’s prior redactions in its breach submission. (SeeDoc. 460 (Redacted
Submission in Support of Breach Determination)). While Mr. Manafort is uncertain whether the
redactions are necessary, he is proceeding in this manner in an effort to be consistent with the
approach taken by the Office of Special Counsel and with the Court’s prior order sealing the
unredacted version of the Office of Special Counsel’s submission.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=11643965

Intent is often difficult to prove.

In fact, when this document was filed, and it helps to read them all, Manafort's lawyers filed the entire thing under seal. They did this even though they had filed documents under seal which were redacted, because they wanted to make sure that they had not inadvertently failed to redact something which should be redacted.

After inspection of the documents, and what was redacted, the court unsealed the documents.

So, you see, it could not possibly have been done intentionally, because, after all, they went through the extra hoop of filing it under seal, and then letting the court unseal it, just to make sure they hadn't forgotten to redact anything.

You see how that works? It's a good thing they took that extra precaution, because otherwise someone might think they did it on purpose.

As I wrote, we live in such crazy times...

That's the evil brilliance of it. They have filed redacted documents before, proving that they know how to do it. This would lead the court to make the assumption that all additional redacted documents would also be prepared correctly. The court, having no reason to believe the attorneys had lost the "ability" to properly redact documents, would only give a cursory look at this filing before releasing it. Ta da!

Was to stupid to be a screw up?

No need to violate several ethical rules, throw their client under the bus and risk their careers in order to get off the case.

Redacting PDF documents is cumbersome and many lawyers who don't know the technology mess up with regularity.
Looks more like ignorance and incompetence which are characteristics associated with all parts of this kakistocracy.

It's not practice of law, it's an IT job. Cheaper, faster and more effective to have a dedicated expert for it.

However, please see jberryhill's posts above. His explanations make the most sense.

He should know

Last edited Wed Jan 9, 2019, 12:26 PM - Edit history (1)

A brief is initially a Word document that is converted to PDF. Redactions are made to the PDF which has an option to permanently delete the underlying text. I would also print a new pdf as a safeguard.

Briefs are usually reviewed by several paralegals and associates before filing so I find this mistake rather suspect or it could be plain incompetence.

That's the key step, since it saves you from any other error.

Even if you think you have the redaction "right" in your .pdf editor (whatever it may be), taking the extra step of exporting the document again as a flat .pdf file will ensure that what looks like a black blob on your screen stays that way.

I am ignorant on the subject

Lawyers represent guilty clients all the time. Getting a high profile guilty client off or minimizing jail time is great for their careers. But stupid mistakes are deadly. Would you hire these clowns as your defense attorney?

I'm not sure this is enough to prove them incompetent.

The lawyers are probably not getting paid, and maybe there's some loyalty to the country there—they maybe accidentally on purpose leaked smoking gun evidence of collusion.

Filing it under seal gives them plausible deniability.