>> Often times what happens at sentencing is directly related to how many other people that can convicted because of the help that's provided - for example - if suspect is looking at 5 year sentence, at pre-sentencing that can say that for every other person that got convicted as a result of their help that 4 months is knocked off the sentence.

While prosecutors don't decide the sentence they can influence sentencing (especially for a guilty plea) by making submissions to the judge... whose discretion has been bound by the official "Federal Sentencing Guidelines" since 1984. The guideline contains tables for sentencing depending on offense, conduct (including co-operation) and criminal history which are broken into zones to yield a sentence range with statutory/mandatory sentence minimums and maximums. A prosecutor can make submissions on conduct to change its zone, and also can file a motion "allowing" a sentence higher or lower in the proscribed range which a judge conventionally honors for a guilty plea, though they don't have to.

To go below the statutory minimum, a judge must rely on The Sentencing Reform Act that can allow a "departure" in several circumstances, especially if you provide substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person. So that's another way for a prosecutor to influence sentencing, since Papadopoulos's sentencing judge will pay close heed to what Mueller says on this topic before deliberating on whether to depart from the mandatory sentencing range.

>> but considering the team that Muller has I'd say the odds of not getting some sort of conviction is rather slim for anyone caught in the snare.

Agreed- and Manafort's has also been via a Grand Jury who agreed with indictment. Plus Mueller included some pretty compelling evidence in the indictment including lists of transactions and fraudulent declarations that will be difficult to defeat, with 68-year-old Manafort facing most if not all of the rest of his life in prison if found guilty of the tax evasion charges alone. Anybody with buried skeletons Manafort knows about has good reason to be worried so if state charges follow to close off Trump's power of pardon for federal charges, we can assume that Mueller believes Manafort has dirt on Trump.

My take? I believe Papadopoulos was desperate to help but had little to offer, while Manafort may have something on "somebody" to interest Mueller- possibly from his few weeks at the campaign helm but also possibly from his decade of conspiracy and corruption, with 2 entities in particular named as vehicles for concealed foreign advancement.