Manafort's Judge, T.S. Ellis, Is a "Caesar" in His Own Rome ~ title of an 8.9/2018 NYT article by Emily Cochrane and Sharon LaFraniere.
tRump campaign chairman and Putin stooge Paul Manafort was sentenced yesterday to 4 years by Reagan-appointed Virginia Judge T.S. Ellis III. When the Mueller team recommended that he get at least 19 and a half to 24 years!
IMO this Legislative Branch appointee did not judge impartially based on the LAW but ruled that Manfort should receive far less time than Special Counsel Robert Mueller recommended based on his own biases.
As per Mr. Mueller, "Manafort acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law, and deprived the federal government and various financial institutions of millions of dollars". But according to Judge Ellis, Mueller lead an "otherwise blameless life". Huh?
"Dropping all the way from 19 years to four years is absurd", Barbara McQuade (a former United States attorney who teaches law at the University of Michigan) accurately observed (as per the NYT).
For the record, Manafort pled guilty to filing false tax returns (5 counts), failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts (1 count) and bank fraud (2 counts) (details here). It is possible that Manafort could still have up to 10 years added to his sentence.
Manafort will be sentenced next week in a DC court presided over by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, where he has pled guilty to an additional 7 charges in DC (he had the option of combining the charges into one trial in DC, but passed). Note that none of the charges have anything to do with the collusion he participated in with Konstantin Kilimnik that involved Manafort handing over tRump campaign internal polling data. Data that allowed Russia to deploy microtargeting and swing the election to tRump [1].
As per a 10/1/2018 New Yorker article by Jane Mayer (How Russia Helped Swing The Election For tRump), "a meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyber attacks by hackers and trolls were decisive".
In other words, YES, there absolutely was collusion! My guess is that Mueller does not want to tip his hand yet. Not when he can nail Manafort for his many other crimes. Revealing the evidence of collusion NOW would probably get his investigation shut down ASAP. Instead the lying Orange Turd (and his defenders) can continue to claim that Manafort's crimes have nothing to do with Dotard tRump. BTW, when Dotard says that Judge Ellis declared that there was no Russian collusion, he lies.
Collusion is not a delusion, a hoax or a witch hunt. The tRump Tower meeting (attended by Manafort) and the Julian Assange/Roger Stone phone call Michael Cohen overheard (because it was on speaker/tRump was in the room) are 2 other notable acts of collusion we are aware of.
When the Mueller report comes out proof of many more will likely (IMO) be revealed. More (and concrete) evidence that the tRump campaign colluded with Russia (directly and via the Russian cut-out WikiLeaks) and Dotard tRump was aware (and approved) of what was going on.
What I think SHOULD happen then is that Dotard should be taken into custody and Hillary Clinton should be sworn in as the duly elected President. Unfortunately, since the Constitution has no provision for this situation, that is not possible. Even though Dotard should absolutely be indicted. The Justice Department may have a "policy" of not indicting a sitting president, but the Constitution does not forbid it.
| Lawrence Tribe: To imply presidential immunity without simultaneously excluding... pre-inaugural crimes that were committed in order to become president would be manifestly unjust. It would create a perverse incentive structure, telling those seeking the presidency that the more successful they become in fraudulently obtaining and holding onto it, the less likely they would be to be held fully accountable for their perfidy. (Yes, the Constitution Allows Indictment of the President. Lawfare 12/20/2018). |
Yet it seems that most professional political pontificators believe tRump will not be indicted because the DOJ says he can't be. Which is, as the article by Harvard Law School professor Larry Tribe points out, ridiculous.
As for Paul Manafort being sentenced to 4 years for a decade of criminal activity. Hopefully Judge Jackson will add another 10 years to his sentence. Which would put him away for 13 years (instead of the 29 he should be getting). Although the Orange Turd can still pardon his partner in collusion. Also, if Mueller does indict (unlikely), that case would go to the Supreme Court (where his ringer Blackout Brett would very likely rule in his favor).
Remember, however, that these are Federal crimes that Manafort (who lied when he said he'd cooperate with Mueller. But apparently Ellis does not care) has been convicted of. State crimes being charged are still very much a possibility (for which tRump could not pardon). So, despite the shameful biased ruling of Judge Ellis, Manafort will probably get at least 10 years... and possibly a lot more, God willing. And deservedly so.
Footnote
1. In regards to Manafort's 8/2/2016 meeting with Konstantin Kilimnik at the Grand Havana Room at 666 Fifth Avenue... prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told judge Amy Berman Jackson that "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating", suggesting that Mueller's office continues to examine a possible agreement between Russia and the tRump campaign (In Closed Hearing, a Clue About "the Heart" of Mueller's Russia Inquiry, NYT).
swtd-412
