*By Carlo Versano*
President Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort is, as of Friday, the latest of the president's ex-associates to plead guilty to felony charges.
Manafort was convicted in federal court in August of eight financial fraud charges, though "this is the first time time Paul Manafort has ever admitted to committing a crime," Ben Dreyfuss, editorial director of Mother Jones, said.
Friday's plea deal was related to a separate set of charges for which the former political consultant was awaiting trial.
As part of the plea, Manafort will cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
That is "massive news," Dreyfuss said.
Trump praised Manafort as a "brave man" when he was found guilty of bank and tax fraud last month ー roughly the same hour when Trump's former consigliere Michael Cohen was offering to cooperate, much to the chagrin of the president.
Manafort's lawyer said Friday his client had offered "full cooperation," though as Dreyfuss noted, no details have been made public yetー and what specifically Manafort could offer prosecutors remains unknown.
"No one knows what he could say except for Trump himself," Dreyfuss said.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plunged last week to the lowest level in 52 years, more evidence that the U.S. job market is recovering from last year’s coronavirus recession.
Congress got a crash course in crypto on Wednesday, as six executives from companies representing a cross-section of the digital economy answered questions from the House Financial Services Committee.
In the spirit of the holidays, Cheddar presents the 12 days of the top terms of 2021.
Face to face for just over two hours, President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin squared off in a secure video call Tuesday as the U.S. president put Moscow on notice that an invasion of Ukraine would bring enormous harm to the Russian economy.
Hawaii Flooding, Beijing Boycott & Disrupting Death
The White House says the U.S. will stage a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing to protest Chinese human rights abuses.
The Los Angeles branch of Planned Parenthood chapter has been hit by a data breach involving about 400,000 patients, but the group says there is no indication the information was used “for fraudulent purposes.”
With rising numbers of COVID-19 cases predicted this winter, President Joe Biden is appealing for Americans to get their boosters and get behind his plan to tackle the new omicron variant through wider availability of vaccines and shots.
President Nayib Bukele announced last week that the Central American country plans to issue the world's first "Bitcoin bond" early next year.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is signaling it will uphold Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion — and may go much further to overturn the nationwide right to abortion that has existed for nearly 50 years.
