Paul Manafort, who was facing a possible 19 to 24 year prison sentence, instead received a 47 month sentence, which ended up becoming 38 months, because Judge T.S. Ellis counted the nine months he spent in jail for witness tampering as time served. And then this same judge added insult to injury by saying that apart from the crimes he committed, Manafort had led an otherwise blameless life.
Seriously, I'm beyond dumbfounded. Even if you agree that 24 years was a bit excessive, 47 months is nothing short of an insult to the entire legal profession. There are people serving decades for crimes far less egregious. And those people are far more "blameless" than Mr. Manafort could ever hope to be. Read Franklin Foer's piece in The Atlantic to learn about the "otherwise blameless life" this scumbag has lived.
A friend of mine may have summed up this atrocity best. "This is not and has never been about Left vs. Right or right vs. wrong; it has always been about rich vs. fucked." What can I say? The man's eloquence puts me to shame. Sadly, those who have the resources to hire the best lawyers often wind up with considerably shorter prison sentences than those who don't, and the majority of those who seem to have those resources are white. Just take a look at the makeup of America's prison population and you'll know something is terribly wrong. While non-whites account for roughly 37 percent of the overall population of the country, they account for 67 percent of the prison population.
Hopefully next week, Manafort will get what's coming to him. That's when he is scheduled to appear in a D.C. courtroom before Judge Amy Berman Jackson for sentencing. This is the judge who ruled that Manafort had violated his cooperation agreement when he lied to prosecutors. I suspect Jackson will not be nearly as forgiving as Ellis. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if she doles out a sentence of at least ten years to be run consecutively. And that would mean Manafort would be in his eighties by the time he got out of prison. That is of course assuming Trump doesn't pardon him before that.
And don't kid yourself: Trump might just go ahead and pardon Manafort, and Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone, and anyone else connected with the Russia investigation. With the exception of Michael Cohen - who Trump views as a traitor - he has dropped hints that he might, in spite of the political risks to him, thumb his nose at his own justice department.
But that's an entirely different story, isn't it?
Seriously, I'm beyond dumbfounded. Even if you agree that 24 years was a bit excessive, 47 months is nothing short of an insult to the entire legal profession. There are people serving decades for crimes far less egregious. And those people are far more "blameless" than Mr. Manafort could ever hope to be. Read Franklin Foer's piece in The Atlantic to learn about the "otherwise blameless life" this scumbag has lived.
A friend of mine may have summed up this atrocity best. "This is not and has never been about Left vs. Right or right vs. wrong; it has always been about rich vs. fucked." What can I say? The man's eloquence puts me to shame. Sadly, those who have the resources to hire the best lawyers often wind up with considerably shorter prison sentences than those who don't, and the majority of those who seem to have those resources are white. Just take a look at the makeup of America's prison population and you'll know something is terribly wrong. While non-whites account for roughly 37 percent of the overall population of the country, they account for 67 percent of the prison population.
Hopefully next week, Manafort will get what's coming to him. That's when he is scheduled to appear in a D.C. courtroom before Judge Amy Berman Jackson for sentencing. This is the judge who ruled that Manafort had violated his cooperation agreement when he lied to prosecutors. I suspect Jackson will not be nearly as forgiving as Ellis. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if she doles out a sentence of at least ten years to be run consecutively. And that would mean Manafort would be in his eighties by the time he got out of prison. That is of course assuming Trump doesn't pardon him before that.
And don't kid yourself: Trump might just go ahead and pardon Manafort, and Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone, and anyone else connected with the Russia investigation. With the exception of Michael Cohen - who Trump views as a traitor - he has dropped hints that he might, in spite of the political risks to him, thumb his nose at his own justice department.
But that's an entirely different story, isn't it?
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