{09.03.19}Paul Manafort was given a very lenient sentence by Virginia federal judge, T.S. Elliot this week. Out of the recommended 19.5 months minimum, Manafort was sentenced to 47 months for tax evasion and bank fraud. Manafort appeared in a wheelchair before Eillis who called the recommended range of 19.5 to 24.5 years “way out of whack”, and said that Manafort “has lived an otherwise blameless life.” Manafort made a lucrative business representing foreign autocrats seeking influence with the US government. When business dried up after the his pro-Kremlin contacts lost power, Manafort resorted to submitting false mortgage documents. The convictions are first offenses for the 69 year old former campaign manager.
Those hoping the prospect of a long prison term, including the Special Counsel, would prompt his once promised cooperation were disappointed by the outcome. California Senator Kamala Harris pointed out the sentence was emblematic of major discrepancies in the justice system between punishments for white-collar crimes versus other nonviolent crimes. Manfort was also found by the District of Columbia federal district court to have breached his cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors by repeatedly lying. The convicted felon still has to appear in the DC federal district court to be sentenced on conspiracy charges and witness tampering before Judge Amy Berman Jackson next week. She could impose a 10 year consecutive sentence, or allow him to serve his sentence concurrently, Given the gravity of his crimes arising from a separate set of circumstances, a consecutive sentence would be more appropriate. MacOrange was quick to pounce on Manafort's lenient treatment in Virginia as evidence of his often repeated claim of "NO COLLUSION"* with Russian operatives working to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
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| credit: Ohman, Sacramento Bee BC Idowanna sez: Use Big Mac for bait! |
*NOT! David Corn writes at Mother Jones: "In early August 2016, Manafort, according to Mueller’s investigation, took time away from his duties as Trump’s campaign manager to meet with [Konstantin] Kilimnik at an upscale New York City cigar bar. Filings in the Manafort case strongly suggested that this meeting took place at the behest of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime and a former business associate of Manafort (and whom Manafort at one point apparently owed millions of dollars). At this meeting, Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data, including private information, with Kilimnik. The New York Times reported that this data was shared with two Ukrainian oligarchs. But what did those oligarchs do with it? Did Kilimink provide this data to anyone else? Mueller’s crew has not said....Perhaps more importantly, during this get-together, Manafort and Kilimnik discussed a supposed peace plan for Ukraine that likely would have been beneficial for Moscow—and that could have led to the lifting of harsh sanctions that the Obama administration and the European Union had imposed on Russia following its intervention in Ukraine. This meeting smacks of collusion: Trump’s top campaign official discussing a pro-Moscow plan with an alleged Russian intelligence asset (sent to New York by an oligarch) at the same time that Putin is mounting an operation within the United States to boost Trump’s chances." It is clear: to regain its democracy America must begin by telling Donald Trump, "You're fired!".