Anyway, Paul Manafort has flipped. Yes, I am surprised, but it isn't the biggest shocker ever. Trump could pardon him for federal crimes, but I guess things were looking more bleak for him on the state criminal front, where Trump's ability to intercede on his behalf was more limited. In that case, yeah, flip. So, how bad is this for Trump?
Consider Manafort himself. What does he have to offer? There are two broad categories of things he can offer: documents and testimony. Documents? Unless they are hidden somewhere that Mueller's boys haven't already raided, it isn't clear what they'll find. The question, then, is the value of Manafort's testimony.
What is a crook's testimony worth? Well, here's the thing. It isn't just Paulie, is it? You've got Paulie, Michael Cohen, whatever bit Papadopoulos offered, and pressure has to be mounting on Flynn. There's Gates... Add documents, and you've got potentially a lot. Add the public information about things like the Trump Tower meeting, add Trump's own statements about the firing of Comey, add Comey's statements and memos, and it isn't just Paulie flapping his gums to save himself a couple of years in the pokey. Manafort's testimony, in context, could be worth a lot. He was a Russian asset, and probably the main agent of Russian influence within the campaign, if I had to guess based on what's public now (although there's still a lot we don't know). If this were anything approaching a normal prosecution, this would be "yuge."
Keep a few things in mind, though.
1) A sitting president cannot be indicted, according to the legal model under which Mueller is operating. I keep reading various commentaries about how the legal question has never been put to the constitutional test, and blah blah blah, but a) it doesn't matter since Mueller won't try to indict Trump, and b) Kavanaugh, shall we say, likes to turn things up to 11 when it comes to executive privilege and power, and once he gets his rapist ass onto the Supreme Court (more on this tomorrow), challenging this doctrine becomes impossible. Trump cannot be indicted as a sitting president.
2) If things get at all hairy, Trump can and will pardon himself. Has this been put to the legal test? Not yet, but let's ask Brett to turn down the music so that we can ask him what he thinks.
3) The probability of Trump being removed from office through impeachment remains zero. Conviction in the Senate requires a 2/3 vote. The question isn't whether or not Manafort flips under threat of state-level charges from which Trump cannot pardon him. The question is whether or not good ole' boys in the Senate flip on him. They won't. Ever. No matter what.
I still haven't addressed potential electoral consequences of Mueller's findings, or long-term effects of the scandal on the GOP, and at some point, I will begin dealing with that, but anyone who thinks that Manafort flipping will take down Trump legally, no. Think it through. The basic legal mechanics haven't changed.