You have a point about allegedly. I should have said Cohen said Trump allegedly told him to break the law--that's what I meant.
I don't follow your sport analogy at all. The second trial will be all about Manafort failing to register as a Ukrainian lobbyist. I think the second Manafort trial will put more daylight between he and Trump. That was also in Manafort's pre-Trump life and can only serve to show that Manafort was a free agent and not on team Trump.
We should also recall the Trump campaign position about why Manafort was shown the door in 2016. This is real-time reporting from
summer of 2016:
The family was particularly troubled by reports of Manafort's involvement with Russia and felt he hadn’t been entirely forthright about his activities overseas, the source said. Family members were also unhappy about changes made to the GOP platform that were seen as beneficial to Russia, which they felt Manafort played a role in, the source added.
We learned today that part of the reason for the Cohen flip is money. Davis is all over the place soliciting funds. Probably so Davis can get paid his exorbitant fee. The fact that Cohen would even retain Davis ought to tell us something about what a slime ball Cohen is. Davis doesn't try cases, he just slimes the legal process.