Manafort sentenced to 7 years, faces fresh New York charges

WASHINGTON >> Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced to a total of 7½ years in prison Wednesday after a federal judge rejected his appeal for no additional time and rebuked him for his crimes and years of lies.

Within minutes of the sentencing, prosecutors in New York brought state charges against Manafort — a move that appeared at least partly designed to guard against the possibility that President Donald Trump could pardon him. The president can pardon federal crimes, but not state offenses.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to nearly 3½ years in prison on charges that he misled the U.S. government about his foreign lobbying work and encouraged witnesses to lie on his behalf. That punishment is on top of a roughly four-year sentence he received last week in a separate case in Virginia. He is expected to get credit for the nine months of jail time he’s done already.