Paul Manafort takes double hit
In a day of bitter setbacks for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort was excoriated by a federal judge, sentenced to another 3 years in prison in the Russia investigation and then swiftly indicted for mortgage fraud in New York.
The rapid-fire developments yesterday boosted the time Manafort is slated to serve in prison for tax evasion, bank fraud and an illegal lobbying campaign on behalf of Ukraine’s former government, crimes prosecuted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
But the abrupt announcement of a 16-count indictment by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, less than an hour after Manafort was sentenced in Washington, could pose a bigger danger to the former globetrotting political consultant. A presidential pardon cannot apply to state charges.
Trump briefly weighed in on the fate of the veteran Republican operative who helmed his presidential campaign for several months in the summer of 2016, including the tumult preceding the Republican National Convention.
‘‘I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,’’ Trump told reporters at the White House, calling it ‘‘a very sad situation.’’
The president said he had ‘‘not thought about’’ issuing a pardon, and he once again slammed the Mueller investigation as a ‘‘hoax.’’ Manafort’s lawyers clearly hoped to appeal to the president, holding a brief news conference outside the federal courthouse after the sentencing. Echoing Trump’s constant denials, Kevin Downing said several times that ‘‘there was no collusion’’ with Russia during the presidential campaign.
Earlier, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson offered a scathing assessment of Manafort’s crimes and career, and she largely dismissed his belated claims of remorse.
During a nearly three-hour hearing, Jackson said ‘‘a significant portion’’ of Manafort’s career appeared ‘‘spent gaming the system.’’ She added 3 years to the nearly four-year prison sentence he was given last week in a related case in Virginia.
Manafort, 69, has been in jail since last June, when Jackson revoked his bail after prosecutors accused him of attempted witness tampering. With credit for nine months served, he now faces nearly seven more years in federal prison.
He was sentenced twice — first by US District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Va., where he was convicted of financial crimes, and then by Jackson in Washington, DC, where he pleaded guilty to conspiracy – because the cases were prosecuted separately.
Whatever hopes Manafort had to escape prison through a presidential pardon were dampened when Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced he was accusing Manafort with a years-long mortgage fraud scheme.