BOMBSHELL NYT REPORT on Manafort/Trump Lawyer Meetings: Trump Is Officially Fucked

[onenote]

33. The lawyers talking to each other isn't lying to prosecutors or obstruction of justice

Yes, its typical for a party to terminate its participation in a joint defense agreement when that party cuts a deal. But unless the prosecution makes doing so a condition of the deal, there is no legal requirement that the joint defense agreement be terminated. As described in the Times article:

"Defense lawyers involved in investigations with multiple witnesses often form such alliances so they can share information without running afoul of attorney-client privilege rules. But when one defendant decides to cooperate with the government in a plea deal, that defense lawyer typically pulls out rather than antagonize the prosecutors who can influence the client’s sentence. For instance, a lawyer for the president’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn withdrew last year from such an agreement with Mr. Trump’s lawyers before pleading guilty to a felony offense and agreeing to help the special counsel.

"Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, on the other hand, maintained their joint defense agreement with the president’s legal team even after Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts in September and began answering questions in at least a dozen sessions with the special counsel.

"Even if the pact was mostly informal at that point, law enforcement experts said it was still highly unusual for Mr. Manafort’s lawyers to keep up such contacts once their client had pledged to help the prosecutors in hope of a lighter punishment for his crimes."