The General US Politics Thread

The screenshot of a browser, which has now been deleted, included a map of the affected area, an update on the number of homes impacted, and a warning that anyone who smells gas should evacuate immediately. But that’s not all the tweet shared. The image appears to be a photo taken by a smartphone of a computer screen at the police department, and the browser containing the map had a row of bookmarks—bookmarks that include pages of left-wing activist Facebook groups. Oops?

While no activist should be surprised that police are tracking them, the concentration of left-wing activist groups at the top of the browser, ostensibly to navigate to the pages regularly and quickly, was a rare if inadvertent official acknowledgement of this kind of tabs-keeping. The Facebook groups that were bookmarked include Massachusetts Action Against Police Brutality (MAAPB), which organizes to end police brutality and shares stories of police killings, the Coalition to Organize and Mobilize Boston Against Trump (COMBAT), and a link to a website called “Resistance Calendar,” which posts Trump-opposition events across the country. There did not appear to be tabs on this particular computer for right-wing political groups that organize online, but perhaps those bookmarks could be found on another department computer.

In a statement to WBUR, the state police didn’t deny their surveillance of activist groups, but added that they monitor public gatherings. “We, obviously, need to know if large numbers of people, for whatever reason, are going to be on public roadways or public spaces, so that we may ensure the safety and rights of those who have gathered as well as of the members of the public around them,” the state police said. Neither MAAPB nor COMBAT appear to have any upcoming events, though.

It seems like there are lessons here for everyone. For activists, particularly those who criticize police or the political party currently in power, it’s a reminder that indeed they are being watched and might want to do more of their organizing in more encrypted, privacy-protecting place. And for the cops, while it’s important to be transparent, maybe take a beat to crop your screenshots before posting them to social media, especially if they contain people’s personal information, like activist names and photos for example. You don’t even need to snap a smartphone pic. Command-shift-4: keystrokes to live by.

The plea deal Mueller struck with Manafort contains several provisions that appear intended to discourage the former Trump aide from seeking a pardon and to rein in the impact of any pardon Trump might grant.

Legal experts with sweeping views of executive power and attorneys who advocate for broad use of clemency criticized what they call an effort by Mueller’s team to tie the president’s hands.

“What is most concerning to me is that Mr. Mueller, who is a part of the executive branch and is supposed to follow all of DOJ’s policies and procedures, is specifically seeking to impede the ability of the president to exercise his constitutional pardon authority,” said David Rivkin, a Justice Department official under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

“These waivers are troubling because they have to do with future events we can’t predict,” University of St. Thomas law professor Mark Osler said, referring to provisions in the plea deal. “They did a pretty good job hiding what they did, but as part of these agreements, sometimes the most important things you want to bury it a little.”

The 17-page deal doesn’t explicitly prohibit Manafort from seeking a pardon, but some lawyers said it appears to extract a promise from Manafort not to seek another form of executive clemency that could relieve him of the obligation to turn over property worth tens of millions of dollars to the government as part of the plea bargain. The agreement also says prosecutors can come after the five identified homes or apartments, three bank accounts and a life insurance policy now or at any point in the future "without regard to the status of his criminal conviction."

Another part of the deal says that if Manafort’s guilty pleas or convictions are wiped out for any reason, prosecutors immediately have the right to charge him with any other crimes he may have committed previously or confessed to during recent plea negotiations.

Osler said he objects to some of the provisions in the plea deal as going too far to close off legitimate routes a defendant should be able to use to raise potential unfairness.

"It does appear this document was created with clemency in mind," said Osler. "If this plays out ... and later we get a pardon of some kind, we're going to have a lot of questions of first impression, I think. Then, we're going to be in the courts on this, and it'll be fascinating."

The inclusion of a section barring Manafort from filing any "petition of remission" troubled some advocates because it appears to prohibit not just a request to the Justice Department but also directing such a request to the president.

A Justice Department regulation blesses the use of such language in plea deals but seems aimed solely at the agency's internal process and not the president's parallel power.

"It is proper to include in a settlement agreement a provision that expressly leaves open or expressly forecloses the right of any party to file a petition for remission or mitigation," the regulation says.

A spokesman for Mueller's office declined to comment on the provisions in the Manafort deal or to say whether they have appeared in other plea deals in the past.

However, some attorneys said they don't think the language in the plea agreement is far from what the Justice Department has done in other cases where defendants are asked to waive numerous rights.

"It always feels like if they're not overreaching, they're heavy-handed, but it's to my sense standard-issue heavy-handed," said Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday formally accepted Manafort's guilty plea to two felony conspiracy counts. It came on the eve of a scheduled jury trial at which the former Trump campaign official faced charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and witness tampering. Last month, at a federal trial in Virginia, Manafort was convicted on eight other felony charges, including tax fraud and bank fraud.

Under the plea bargain, the 69-year-old Manafort faces up to 10 years in prison in the D.C. case. He could receive up to 80 years on the charges filed in Virginia, but the sentence there will probably be far less. Prosecutors promised to request that the sentences run concurrently.

At the hearing Friday, Jackson discussed several provisions in the plea agreement with Manafort but did not specifically address what might play out if he sought clemency from the president or obtained a pardon. The judge did note that he was waiving the statute of limitations.

"If for some reason this plea is set aside and these charges are brought in the future, you're waiving your right to say, well, it's too late to bring those charges against me?" she said. She did ask Manafort if he understood that he was forfeiting "a considerable amount of property." He said he did.

Legal experts said that, ultimately, if Trump wants to pardon Manafort, he can do so, but to make the pardon effective he might have to word it so broadly that it covers not only the things the former Trump campaign chair was charged with but things he wasn't.

Trump might also have to make clear what, if any, property he's trying to restore to Manafort.

"The president could make a pardon as sweeping as the president chose to, as long as it doesn't apply to prospective crimes," said former federal prosecutor Andrew Mc Carthy. He also said the plea agreement is replete with indications that prosecutors were gaming out a potential clemency action from Trump.

"I have no doubt that they were thinking about that as they were going through it," Mc Carthy said. "If they're going to do this, they have every reason to do it and justify it, but be honest about it," he said, adding that he saw several "potential time bombs seeded" into the deal.