Paul Manafort Sentenced To 47 Months For Multiple Felony Crimes

Paul Manafort on June 15th, 2018

President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 47 months in prison for multiple felony crimes. Prosecutors had recommended 19-24 years in prison, which the judge said was "excessive."

Before sentencing was handed down, Manafort addressed the judge, saying, "The last two years have been the most difficult years for my family and I. To say that I feel humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement." He did not apologize for his conduct however.

Manafort, who turns 70 next month, was convicted last year of eight counts of tax and bank fraud related to his overseas work advising Ukrainian politicians. The judge noted that Manafort was not being sentenced for anything related to the Special Counsel's investigation into Russian interference: "He is not before the court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government."

Greg Andres, lead prosecutor for the special counsel Robert Mueller, told the court today regarding his sentencing, "Manafort did not provide valuable information to the special counsel that wasn’t already known. He told us 50 hours of things we already knew. He did not provide information that was useful."

As the NY Times reports, "For nearly two years, prosecutors pursued Mr. Manafort on two tracks, charging him with more than two dozen felonies, including obstruction of justice, bank fraud and violations of lobbying laws. But while they won a jury conviction and a guilty plea, Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors have yet to provide a full public account of what information they gleaned from Mr. Manafort’s case regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the degree of involvement by Trump associates."

Next week, Judge Amy Berman Jackson will sentence Manafort for two crimes to which he pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal: conspiracy against the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which each carry a maximum penalty of five years. Judge Jackson will decide whether Manafort will serve both sentences concurrently or consecutively.

Last September, Manafort reached a plea agreement where he would cooperate with prosecutors in that case, but Judge Jackson ruled he had breached the agreement by continuing to lie to prosecutors, including whether he shared Trump polling data in 2016 with a Russian associate with ties to a Russian intelligence service.

Last month, federal prosecutors described Manafort as a "hardened, remorseless criminal" who “repeatedly and brazenly” violated numerous laws over more than a decade, adding that he did not deserve any sentencing leniency.

"Manafort chose repeatedly and knowingly to violate the law — whether the laws proscribed garden-variety crimes such as tax fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud, or more esoteric laws that he nevertheless was intimately familiar with, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)," Mueller's memo read. "His criminal actions were bold, some of which were committed while under a spotlight due to his work as the campaign chairman and, later, while he was on bail from this court."

As The Atlantic noted, there are still tons of unanswered questions about Manafort's time at the helm of Trump's campaign left over.