Court KOs Cy case vs. Manafort
Paul Manafort cannot face prosecution in New York for crimes that were pardoned on a federal level by former President Donald Trump, the state’s top court has ruled, ensuring the former Trump campaign chairman will remain a free man.
The ruling from the Court of Appeals upheld a lower order from October that found Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. violated the state’s double jeopardy law by attempting to charge Manafort with mortgage fraud and other felonies. The double jeopardy law bars prosecutors from charging crimes that have already been tried.
The onepage Court of Appeals ruling, which was dated Feb. 4, did not offer an opinion on the merits of Vance’s case, but denied hearing it, thereby leaving the lower order in place.
Todd Blanche, an attorney for Manafort (inset), said the ex-Trump campaign chairman was “pleased” with the ruling.
“As we have said from the time the district attorney announced charges against Mr. Manafort, this is a case that should never have been brought,” Blanche said on Monday.
A spokesman for Vance declined to comment.
Manafort was convicted in federal court in August 2018 of a range of financial and foreign lobbying crimes uncovered as part of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign participated in Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
Trump issued a full pardon for Manafort on Dec. 23, scrubbing his former campaign chairman’s criminal record and canceling out the rest of his seven-year prison sentence.
However, presidential pardons only cover federal crimes, and Vance charged Manafort in 2019 with state fraud crimes in a deliberate attempt to make sure he faced justice in the event that Trump gave him clemency.
Long before Trump’s pardon, Manafort’s attorneys sought to get the Vance case tossed on double jeopardy grounds, arguing the Manhattan prosecutor was trying to slam him with charges identical to the federal ones he was serving time for.
An arduous appeal process ensued, as Vance would not give up the case.