The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paul Manafort jailed over tampering charges
A federal judge ordered President Trump’s former campaign chairman to jail over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered Paul Manafort to jail Friday over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail — a major blow for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges next month.
“You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort. “The government motion will be granted and the defendant will be detained.”
The judge said sending Manafort to a cell was “an extraordinarily difficult decision,” but added his conduct left her little choice, because he had allegedly contacted witnesses in the case in an effort to get them to lie to investigators.
“This is not middle school. I can’t take away his cellphone,” she said. “If I tell him not to call 56 witnesses, will he call the 57th?” She said she should not have to draft a court order spelling out the entire criminal code for him to avoid violations.
“This hearing is not about politics. It is not about the conduct of the office of special counsel. It is about the defendant’s conduct,” Jackson said. “I’m concerned you seem to treat these proceedings as another marketing exercise.”
Manafort was led out of the courtroom by security officers. He turned and gave a last look and wave to his wife, seated in the well of the court. She nodded back to him.
His lawyer Richard Westerling had urged the judge not to send him to jail, saying that it was not required by law, and doing so “will create more challenges for the defense, which already faces trial in two courts.”
The order to incarcerate Manafort capped a monthslong fight over the terms of his bail. He had been asking to post a $10 million bond and end seven months of home detention. It was not immediately clear where Manafort would be jailed.
Hours earlier, Trump had defended Manafort in remarks to reporters outside the White House. Manafort “has nothing to do with our campaign, but I tell you I feel a little badly about it,” Trump said. “They went back 12 years
to get things that he did 12 years ago.”
Trump added that Manafort “worked for me for a very short period of time.”
Asked if he might consider pardoning former aides and advisers, Trump answered: “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Prosecutors alleged that by committing a new crime while on release, Manafort violated the terms of his home confinement in Alexandria, Virginia, and they asked the judge to revoke or revise it.
Manafort’s attorneys have denied the tampering allegations and accused prosecutors of conjuring charges to pressure him to flip his plea and turn against Trump and his associates.
Manafort was arraigned Friday on the obstruction counts and is set for trial in Washington in September over the allegations of secret lobbying. He also faces a federal trial in Virginia in July for related tax and bank fraud charges brought as prosecutors reviewed his financial dealings.
He had been confined to his home on electronic monitoring and other restrictions since he was first indicted Oct. 27 during special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Most of the criminal counts relate to activity that
preceded Manafort’s time as Trump’s campaign manager, from March to August of 2016, when he resigned amid news reports that he had received secret cash payments for his Ukraine consulting.
Prosecutors had previously complained to the judge about Manafort’s behavior as he awaited trial. In December, they accused him of violating a court’s gag order by helping ghostwrite an op-ed piece defending his work in Ukraine for an English-language newspaper in Kiev.
Jackson, the judge, declined to punish Manafort then but warned she would likely consider similar actions in the future as a violation.
In asking for Manafort to be jailed, prosecutor Greg Andres said in court that there was a danger Manafort would continue to commit crimes.
“There is nothing on the record of this court that assures that Mr. Manafort will abide by conditions” of pre-trial release short of jail, Andres said.
As both sides discussed the witness tampering allegation, Richard Westling, an attorney for Manafort, urged the judge to consider options short of jail that could be added to the existing terms of his release “that can prevent this from occurring in the future.” He said a no-contact order with others in the case could achieve that result and said the current release terms had not explicitly included that restriction.
Andres replied that “it’s inconceivable that [Manafort] doesn’t know that they’re potential witnesses.”
The fall indictment of Manafort and his longtime deputy, Rick Gates, marked the first public charges in the special counsel investigation. Gates, 46, pleaded guilty in February to lying to investigators and agreed to provide information in a cooperation deal with Mueller’s team.
Manafort has repeatedly declared his intention to fight the charges in both jurisdictions, with his lawyers saying that he is being wrongly prosecuted for financial activities that have nothing to do with Russian interference in the 2016 election, the main focus of Mueller’s investigation.
Prosecutors have said that Manafort’s role in the campaign and long-standing ties to Russian-backed politicians, financiers and others merited investigation into whether any of them served as back channels to Russia.
The obstruction charges flow out of lobbying work in 2012 on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions.
A Manafort associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, also was charged with obstruction in connection with the alleged approaches to witnesses. Kilimnik is believed to be in Moscow - and therefore safe from arrest because Russia does not extradite its citizens. Prosecutors have previously said Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence, which he denies.