Well worth a read. I had forgotten that Manafort was acquitted of something like ten additional federal counts because of a lone juror holdout. That's the system (better a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man hangs - I think Blackstone said that but I'm sure he wasn't the first and certainly wasn't the last) and I have no quarrel with it. Trump is pleased of course. NO COLLUSION!!!!!! The fact that he has been shown to surround himself with criminals speaks, at least to me, for itself.
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:58 pm
by Big RR
Of course, he wasn't charged with collusion, so I really don't know what relevance "no collusion" has here.
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:10 pm
by Lord Jim
Yeah, he wasn't found guilty of assault, burglary, murder or spitting on the sidewalk either...
Manafort is still far from out-of-the-woods in terms of longer prison time...
Next week, he goes before the judge in his Virginia case, who is also the judge who ruled that he had breached his cooperation agreement. She's likely to be far less sympathetic to him than the somewhat eccentric judge who gave him less than a quarter of the time the sentencing guidelines called for.
I understand she could sentence him to as many as 10 years, and also has the option of making them concurrent or consecutive with the 47 months (nine of which he has already served) that he was sentenced to yesterday...
I've heard that one likely scenario is that she could sentence him to the full 10 years with part of them to run concurrent and part consecutive, so he'd wind up with a total of about 10 years...
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:47 pm
by Crackpot
What if trump were held to the same standards of proximity to criminality that others have.
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:25 pm
by ex-khobar Andy
Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part but I am guessing that a couple of years in Club Feb with maybe five years in a less wholesome Virginia state penitentiary to look forward to, might be one way of concentrating the mind.
One wonders how many other Manaforts there are out there who have managed to evade taxes for so long and accumulate $$$$ and have gone (and will continue to go) scot-free because they have the brains to keep a low profile.
(And, BTW, for those of you interested in etymology. Scot-free has nothing to do with us Scots: it comes from an Old Danish word skat which means taxes - someone who got off skat free during the time of the Danegeld (10th and 11th Century Britain) was someone who did not pay taxes. So it's quite appropriate for Manafort. I thought you'd like to know. You're welcome.)
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:34 pm
by dales
Silly me, I thought the term had to do with Scots.
Well worth a read. I had forgotten that Manafort was acquitted of something like ten additional federal counts because of a lone juror holdout. ... " f.
A hung jury, surely, not acquittal. He can be re-tried on those charges can't he?
Anyhow, I'll wait and see what the other outcomes are before deciding if it is appropriate. "otherwise blameless" though, stunning.
yrs,
rubato
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 12:03 am
by ex-khobar Andy
A hung jury, surely, not acquittal. He can be re-tried on those charges can't he?
You're right of course. I don't know: is there some requirement that there be a determination of a retrial within a fixed period of time or else hung jury = acquittal? Maybe one of our legal seagulls can help.
Re: "In an otherwise blameless life . . ."
Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:04 pm
by Lord Jim
Judge Amy Berman Jackson added 3 1/2 years to Paulie's prison time, and also delivered a much needed smack-down to his lawyers on the whole "no collusion" nonsense:
Judge slammed Manafort for 'no collusion mantra' just before sentencing him
Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Wednesday blasted what she called the "no collusion mantra" she heard from Paul Manafort’s attorneys during his trial, and called it a distraction just before she sentenced him to 43 additional months in prison.
Jackson indicated during the sentencing hearing that Manafort's lawyers may have been stressing that none of his crimes showed that President Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election in a bid to win a pardon from Trump. But, she said their "no collusion refrain is irrelevant to the matter at hand."
“The repetition of this claim, which has no bearing on the matter before us, suggested it wasn’t being repeated for the person you were trying to persuade in court, but for some other audience," she said, in a hint that she suspects the lawyers were putting on a show for Trump.[Ya think?]
“The ‘no collusion’ mantra is simply a non sequitur,” she said, scolding Manafort’s lawyers for bringing it up during the trial. It’s not accurate, she continued, because “the investigation is still ongoing.”
She said pointedly: “Court is one of those places where facts still matter.”
Then minutes later, in a move so brazen that I believe he may have invited a contempt charge, Trump lawyer
Kevin Downing stands out on the court house steps and blatantly lies about what the judge just said:
Minutes after former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was sentenced to an additional 43 months in prison for conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice, his attorney Kevin Downing falsely told reporters outside the courthouse that the judge in the case had exonerated the Trump campaign of collusion with Russia.
“Judge Jackson conceded that there was absolutely no evidence of any Russian collusion in this case,” Downing said, inaccurately paraphrasing remarks made by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. “So that makes two courts, two courts have ruled ‘no evidence of any collusion with any Russians.’”
As he tried to continue with his statement, Downing was aggressively shouted down by onlookers yelling things like “Liar! That’s not what she said!” and “you’re not lawyers, you’re liars!”[Not exactly two mutually exclusive groups...Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of protestors shouting down speakers, but I'm prepared to make an exception... In this case, the protestors were basically providing a real time fact-checking service for the public...]
But if Paulie's counting on a Presidential Pardon or sentence commutation to save him from spending his twilight years in Stoney Lonesome, he may need to think again:
Ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, just sentenced to federal prison, faces new charges in N.Y. indictment
NEW YORK – State prosecutors in Manhattan hit Paul Manafort with a new indictment Wednesday, roughly an hour after the disgraced former Trump campaign manager received his latest federal prison term.
Unlike the two federal cases in which Manafort has been sentenced to prison, a conviction on the charges announced by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance would be beyond the reach of any pardon issued by President Donald Trump.
Federal prosecutors have said they suspect Manafort could be angling for a pardon to secure his freedom. The White House has not ruled out the possibility that he could receive one. Asked about the possibility of a pardon at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said he has "not even given it a thought," though added he feels "very badly" for his former campaign chairman.
The 16-count New York indictment alleges that Manafort received more than $1 million by working with unnamed others to willfully submit false financial statements when applying for residential mortgage loans.
The charges include residential mortgage fraud, conspiracy, falsifying business records, and participating in a scheme to defraud. The alleged crimes were committed between December 22, 2015, and approximately March 7, 2016, the indictment charged.
