The Trump 2016 Job Ruined Paul Manafort's Life. So Why Did He Take It?

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The Trump 2016 Job Ruined Paul Manafort's Life. So Why Did He Take It?
4-5 minutes

Well, she scalded him good and proper before sending him off to the pokey. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who clearly was fed up clear to her eyeballs with Paul Manafort's crimes and shenanigans, took his lachrymose statement under advisement and then ate Ol' Ostrichskins alive.

    “That is not reflective of somebody who has learned a harsh lesson. It is not a reflection of remorse, it is evidence that something is wrong with sort of a moral compass, that somebody in that position would choose to make that decision.”

In addition:

    “The criminal conduct in this case was not an isolated, single incident. A significant portion of his career has been spent gaming the system.”

And about your lawyer, Knocko, and your old boss, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago.

    “The ‘no collusion’ refrain that runs through the entire defense memorandum is unrelated to matters at hand. It’s hard to understand why an attorney would write that. The ‘no collusion’ mantra is simply a non sequitur.”

But as long as we're on the topic:

    “It’s not appropriate to say investigators haven’t found anything when you lied to the investigators.”

And, about 30 minutes after he was sentenced in Washington, a Manhattan grand jury unsealed an indictment against Manafort on 16 counts of various frauds. He will be off to the federal pokey for at least seven years, but now state prosecutors and local DA's will have their bite at his ass. And they can use his admissions in federal court against him in state courts, where a presidential pardon would not reach him, either.
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Kevin Downing, lawyer for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, leaves the US District Court in Washington, DC on March 13, 2019.

MANDEL NGANGetty Images   

Read again, especially, Jackson's gutting of the now-familiar "no collusion" misdirection that Manafort's lawyers tried to pull on her prior to sentencing on Wednesday. From the Washington Post:

    “The ‘no collusion’ refrain that runs through the entire defense memorandum is unrelated to matters at hand,” she said. “The ‘no collusion’ mantra is simply a non sequitur. The ‘no collusion’ mantra is also not accurate, because the investigation is still ongoing.”

This strategy by the defense was universally identified as a sub rosa plea for a pardon from Manafort's most prominent former North American client. And Jackson's stern rebuke became especially piquant given the fact that Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, came out of the courthouse and, standing before an array of microphones and cameras, repeated this irrelevant mantra again, before protestors heckled him into a hasty retreat, where he undoubtedly received news of the Manhattan indictment and wished he'd become a commercial fisherman.

But it was something Downing said before the sentence was pronounced that sticks in the mind. Of his client, Downing said:

    "But for a short stint as campaign manager in a national election, I don’t think we would be here today.”

This is probably true. But, if it is, why did Manafort take the job at all? He only had the gig for a couple of months, and his experience with this particular candidate was every bit as miserable as you'd imagine it would be. I know he probably was running the ball for his pals in Ukraine, and that he was desperate for money, but that game seems hardly worth the candle, and he probably could have achieved both of these objectives without being put in nominal charge of the campaign, where the spotlight undoubtedly would be more intense.

There's still a lot more sewage running underground in this story but, I have to say, being indicted in one court immediately after having been sentenced in another does make for a pretty awful half-hour.

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