Paul Manafort given seven-year prison term and severe rebuke from judge
Paul Manafort, the former Donald Trump campaign chairman, was told by a judge on Wednesday that he is a liar and fraud who will spend a total of seven and a half years in prison.
Wearing a dark suit and tie and sitting in a wheelchair because of gout, Manafort was sentenced in a Washington court to about three and a half years in addition to the nearly four years he received last week in Virginia, a punishment that many decried as too lenient.
Less than an hour later, Manafort was charged with millions of dollars of fraud and conspiracy in New York state, where Trump would not have the power to pardon him.
In Washington, US district judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Manafort a tongue-lashing over the web of deceit he spun to earn millions of dollars lobbying for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine, though she emphasised the case has no bearing on alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The judge said pointedly: “Court is one of those places where facts still matter.”
Manafort was once a high-flying lobbyist who served as a consultant to former Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. He worked for Trump’s election campaign for five months in 2016.
In the Virginia case, he had been convicted in August last year by a jury for bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. In the Washington case, he pleaded guilty in September last year to conspiracy including money laundering and unregistered lobbying, and a second conspiracy count related to witness tampering. He then violated his cooperation agreement with Robert Mueller by lying to investigators.
Though it did not seem his fall from grace could go much further, Manafort was forced to sit rigidly still and silent on Wednesday as Jackson read him the riot act in a packed courtroom. “It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the extraordinary amount of money involved,” she said.
Manafort lied to Congress and to the American people, Jackson continued, and his motivation was “not to support a family, but to sustain a lifestyle that was ostentatiously opulent and extravagantly lavish – more houses than a family can enjoy, more suits than one man can wear”.
Manafort’s defence team noted that none of Mueller’s charges against him related to the special counsel’s main brief: Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“But for a short stint as a campaign manager in a presidential election, I don’t think we’d be here today,” Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing said. He added that there was “a media frenzy” and “everyone’s going nuts over this”.
But Jackson dismissed this line or argument, and told Manafort there was no good explanation for the leniency he sought. “Saying ‘I’m sorry I got caught’ is not an inspiring plea for leniency,” she said. “The ‘no collusion’ refrain that runs through the entire defence memorandum is entirely unrelated to the matter in hand.”
Manafort was criticised at last week’s hearing for failing to apologise for his crimes. This time, a humbled figure with greying hair, he said: “Let me be very clear: I accept responsibility for the actions that led me to be here today, and I want to apologise for all I contributed to the impacts on people and institutions.
“While I cannot change the past, I can work to change the future. I want to say to you now, I am sorry for what I have done and for all of the activities that have gotten us here today. This case has taken everything from me already my properties, my cash, my life insurance, my trust accounts for my children and my grandchildren, and more.”
He will soon turn 70, he noted, and is the primary caregiver for his 66-yearold wife. “She needs me and I need her. Please let my wife and I be together.”
But earlier, for the government, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said Manafort had engaged in an extensive coverup that deceived the US government and the American public, hiding tens of millions of dollars in 30 foreign bank accounts, and continued to try to undermine the investigation even after
he pleaded guilty.
“Paul Manafort’s upbringing, his education, his means, his opportunities could have led him to be a leading example for this country,” Weissmann said. “At each juncture, though, Mr Manafort chose to take a different path.”
Weissmann said that Manafort’s attempt to get witnesses to lie for him “is not reflective of somebody who has learned a harsh lesson. It is not a reflection of remorse. It is evidence that something is wrong with sort of a moral compass.”
Jackson sentenced Manafort to more than six years in prison for the two conspiracy charges, though part of this will run concurrent with the sentence in the Virginia case. That means his total time behind bars will be about seven and a half years.
This outcome prompted renewed criticism. Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, said: “Looking at the totality of what Paul Manafort did and the totality of the sentences imposed upon him, Paul Manafort caught a break. Manafort thumbed his nose at justice in this country.”
Trump has not ruled out a presidential pardon for Manafort, and after last week’s sentencing said “I feel very badly” for his former aide.
But also on Wednesday, Manafort was charged in a 16-count indictment in New York state, including mortgage fraud, falsifying business records and conspiracy. Trump would not be able to pardon Manafort on the state charges – which separates them from the federal cases for which Manafort has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.