Manafort plea - Part 3

This article from last November may explain the "admission" vs. "plea" issue I had in a previous post.

Why is special counsel Robert Mueller bringing so few charges against [...] Paul Manafort?

[...]

Andrew McCarthy at National Review is puzzled about Mueller’s charges for Manafort, calling it “curious” that he leaves out so many possible charges, including tax fraud and other forms of fraud. “These omissions do not make sense to me,” McCarthy writes.

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Mueller’s moves may make strategic sense because of a shadow hanging over the entire investigation: the potential that President Donald Trump might use his presidential pardon power to protect possible accomplices in potential crimes.

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On the one hand, double jeopardy rules under the Fifth Amendment prevent a second prosecution for the same crime, but the doctrine of dual sovereignty allows a state to follow a federal prosecution.

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[S]tate rules can expand double jeopardy protections and limit prosecutions. In fact, New York is such a state. New York is the key state for Mueller because New York has jurisdiction over many alleged or potentially uncovered Trump–Russia crimes (conspiracy to hack/soliciting stolen goods/money laundering, etc.).

[...]

The New York statute does not allow a state prosecution to follow a federal prosecution (“a court of any jurisdiction within the United States”) for the same basic facts.

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I discussed some of the parallel state felony charges in this Slate piece (also published in Just Security). In August, sources revealed that Mueller was already coordinating with [New York AG Eric] Schneiderman, likely to work out this strategy. I also noted that all of this legal background is relevant to solve an additional problem: If Trump fires Mueller, state prosecutors can carry on with his investigation and prosecutions based on parallel state laws.

  Slate

So, if Mueller leaves money laundering (and other charges) as an individual charge off the agreement, there's no complication of any interference by the federal case in a possible (very probable) state charge.  Now that I'm reminded of that, I think I recall there being concerns that New York, where Trump did his money laundering, wouldn't be able to prosecute if there were a federal suit for the same thing.

Mueller ain't stupid.    But I'm kind of surprised Manafort would agree to this.  Unless he just simply didn't have much bargaining power at all.