National Post (National Edition)
Manafort gets 47months for bank, taxfraud
Ex-trump campaign chair
ALEXANDRIA, VA .• Paul Manafort, who helped define Washington’s modern lobbying culture and advised four U.S. presidents, was sentenced to less than four years in prison for hiding millions of dollars offshore to support a glittering lifestyle that included six homes, dozens of custom suits and a $15,000 ostrich jacket.
Manafort, 69, faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison, but got a break from the federal judge in Alexandria, Va., Thursday who called a recommendation for a sentence of 19 years to 24 1/2 years excessive.
Manafort’s punishment could still get worse. He faces another decade in prison when he’s sentenced March 13 in Washington for conspiracy counts related to a secret lobbying campaign on behalf of Ukraine and for joining a Russian associate in tampering with witnesses.
The downfall of Manafort, President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman for four months, came at the hands of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who depicted him as a serial liar who defrauded tax authorities and banks while concealing his political consulting for pro-russia politicians in Ukraine. Mueller is investigating whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russians who interfered with the 2016 election.
Manafort, who attended the hearing in a wheelchair, wearing a green jumpsuit, had asked the judge for mercy in a brief statement. He was convicted of eight felonies, including hiding US$55 million abroad, cheating the U.S. of more than US$6 million in taxes and defrauding banks that lent him money. His lawyers didn’t dispute that his crimes were serious, conceding he didn’t report income made offshore to the Internal Revenue Service, hid accounts from the Treasury Department and lied to lenders after his cash dwindled.
But they insisted that Manafort, who worked on Trump’s campaign without pay, never colluded with Russia. They said Mueller singled him out because he worked for Trump. And they said Manafort’s work for former president Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine wasn’t on behalf of a Kremlin-aligned politician, as Mueller contends, but rather an effort to steer Ukraine toward the U.S.-friendly European Union.
Yanukovych fled to Moscow after protests in 2014.
After his conviction in Alexandria, Manafort averted a trial in Washington by pleading guilty to two conspiracy counts and agreeing to co-operate with Mueller. But prosecutors said he repeatedly lied to them in debriefings while failing to come clean about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate allegedly tied to Russian intelligence. Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington ruled that Manafort deliberately lied about his contacts with Kilimnik, calling it an “attempt to shield his Russian conspirator from liability” and saying it raised “legitimate questions about where his loyalties lie.”
Prosecutors said that during the 2016 campaign, Manafort shared Trump polling data with Kilimnik, and they discussed a peace plan to resolve sanctions imposed on Russia after it annexed Ukraine. Mueller also appeared to examine whether Manafort and Kilimnik possibly were a back channel for communications between Russia and Trump, but neither man was formally accused of that.
Manafort was considered a gifted political strategist who advised presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Trump, all of them Republicans. As an international political lobbyist, he reaped millions of dollars by working for strongmen like Jonas Savimbi in Angola, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. He made more than US$60 million in Ukraine from 2010 to 2014.