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MANAFORT PLEADS FOR MERCY…

Manafort FINALLY says ‘sorry’ as he pleads with Obama-appointed judge

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com and Associated Press

Published: 00:14 EDT, 13 March 2019 | Updated: 11:55 EDT, 13 March 2019

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Former Donald Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort said in federal court Wednesday he was ‘sorry’ for the crimes he admitted to – just a week after failing to express remorse in another court last week.

But Judge Amy Berman Jackson said there was ‘no reason’ to justify leniency he was seeking, tearing into Manafort’s conduct as she prepared to announce her decision.

She said the ‘element of remorse and responsibility were completely absent’ from Manafort’s filings. ‘Saying I’m sorry I got caught is not an inspiring plea for leniency,’ Judge Jackson said from the bench.

‘It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the extraordinary amount of money involved,’ Judge Jackson told her courtroom while Manafort’s fate hung in the balance.

She accused Manafort of lying to members of Congress and the American public by failing to accurately disclose his overseas lobbying work.

BACK IN COURT: Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman,returned to federal court Wednesday for additional sentencing following a 47 month sentence in a federal court in Virginia

The judge even brought up the ‘opulent’ lifestyle Manafort lived off monies he failed to report to tax authorities – even referencing his infamous $15,000 ostrich leather bomber jacket and other tailored garments submitted by prosecutors.

Manafort splurged on ‘more suits than one man can wear,’ she said.

‘There’s no question that this defendant knew better, and he knew exactly what he was doing,’ said the judge.

Then she unloaded on him for witness tampering even after being charged with federal crimes.

‘He pled guilty to conspiring to corruptly persuade another person — two people — with the intent to influence their testimony in an official proceeding. And which official proceeding? This one – the case against Mr. Manafort himself,’ she said.

However the judge took pains to note that Manafort was not being sentenced for anything having to do with collusion in this case.

‘The question of collusion or conspiracy with Russia was not presented in this case, therefore it was not resolved in this case,’ she said, as her barbs filtered out of the courtroom.

In a sharp line freighted with political implications in Washington, she said court is a place ‘where facts still matter.’

She said remorse was ‘completely absent’ from his submissions to the court, and called it ‘striking’ he didn’t submit a letter laying out a reason for contrition, adding that even defendants who haven’t finished high school have done so, BuzzFeed reported.

Manafort’s disclosure failures struck to the core of the U.S. democratic system, she argued.

‘If the people don’t have the facts, democracy can’t work,’ Judge Jackson said.

Manafort appeared in federal court in Washington, D.C. to learn whether his nearly four-year prison term would get lengthened for additional crimes he pleaded guilty to committing.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, had to decide whether Manafort would serve his sentences in sequence or concurrently

Jackets included in the government’s exhibits admitted into evidence, at the trial of President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, are seen in this combination image of pictures released from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in Washington, DC, U.S. on August 1, 2018

In another line, Judge Jackson appeared to rebut a statement by Judge T.S. Ellis that Manafort lived an ‘otherwise blameless life.’

‘The criminal conduct in this case was not an isolated, single incident,’ she said, saying a significant amount of his career ‘has been spent gaming the system.’

His expression of contrition was a turnaround from his earlier court appearance, where he failed to express remorse while seeking ‘compassion’ – and ultimately earned a sentence far below what prosecutors were seeking anyway.

‘I am sorry for what I’ve done,’ Manafort said as he pleaded to limit his sentence and cited his own time in solitary confinement and his wife’s health.

‘Let me be very clear I accept the responsibility for the acts that caused me to be here today. While I cannot undo the past I can assure the future will be very different,’ Manafort said, CNN reported.

He also played up his age as he begged to be with his wife, Kathleen, who was in the courtroom.

‘Your honor, I will be 70 years old in a few weeks. My wife is 66. I am her primary caregiver,’ Manafort said. ‘This case has taken everything from me already. Please let my wife and I be together.’

‘My behavior in the future will be very different. I have already begun to change,’ he said.

Manafort appeared to try to get a do-over on his remarks last week seeking leniency.

‘In my previous allocation I told Judge Ellis I was ashamed for my conduct,’ he said. ‘I want to say to you now that I am sorry for what I have done and for all the activities that have gotten me here today.’

Kathleen Manafort, wife of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, arrives at the US District Court in Washington, DC on March 13, 2019

The judge hearing the case was expected to tack additional prison time onto Manafort’s sentence, after the former power broker managed to secure a sentence of 47 months in jail despite a recommendation by prosecutors he be put away for up to 24 years.

This time, he is being sentenced for two conspiracy counts, to which he has already pleaded guilty. But prosecutors also accuse him of lying in violation of his cooperation agreement, which could weigh on the outcome.

Manafort spoke after spending nine months in prison as his case made its way through the courts. Judge Jackson formalized the government’s move to seize $11 million in assets from him.

At the top of Manafort’s hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, acknowledged last week’s sentencing, when Manafort avoided a sentence that could have put him away for the rest of his life.

The former Trump campaign chairman will spend his four-year sentence in the Federal Correctional Institute in Cumberland, Maryland.

The prison – a go-to for white-collar Washington criminals – has in the past been described as ‘a stress free environment’ and ‘more like a college’.

According to reports, Manafort will be able to receive mail, make outgoing phone calls and see visitors when he chooses once a week.

And if that doesn’t keep him entertained, there’s a gym, a softball field with a running track and  televisions showing sport on every wing.

Inmates can also enroll in classes including music, business, and educational programs.

They are free to leave the premises when they choose to do jobs in the yard – which is surrounded by swathes of thick leafy woodlands with barely a neighbor in sight.

A top D.C. defense attorney said his clients described the prison as a ‘boys dormitory’, according to the Washington Post.

And there’s rarely any trouble or conflict because inmates understand they’re getting it easy and don’t want to be sent somewhere tougher, the attorney added.

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Clinton administration official Webb Hubbell both served time at the facility.

Both NFL star Michael Vick and musician Chris Brown have also been incarcerated in the facility during their stints in jail.

A typical day at the camp starts with wake-up call a 6am. There’s then more than an hour before breakfast at 7.15am.

Prisoners can work or take classes until lunch is served at midday.

Inmates can fill their afternoons with more work, take classes or workout before a head count at 4pm and dinner an hour later.

There’s then ‘free time’ after dinner to watch television, send mail or talk on the phone before lights out at 11pm.

‘What’s happening today is not and cannot be a review or revision of a sentence that was imposed in another court,’ she said, the Washington Post reported. At the outset, she indicated that some of his sentence might be served concurrently since his Virginia sentence related to the conspiracy he was being sentenced for Wednesday.

‘Whether he lied during his cooperation sessions and breached the plea agreement has some relevance,’ she said, CNN reported.

Manafort’s lawyers argued that he should get credit for having pleaded guilty.

‘Your honor, our position is Mr. Manafort did accept responsibility,’ lawyer Thomas  Zehnle said. ‘Did he truthfully admit the conduct comprising the offenses charged? He did.’

But prosecutors said Manafort lied to investigators ‘repeatedly.’ Some of the courtroom back-and-forth related to Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort’s former business associate who the special counsel’s office says has ties to Russian intelligence.

And following last week’s remark by Judge T.S. Ellis that Manafort had lived an ‘otherwise blameless life,’ prosecutors argued his crimes cut to the core of the democratic process.

‘Mr. Manafort committed crimes that undermined our political process,’ Prosecutor Andrew Weissman said, CNN reported. He highlighted Manafort’s work for the pro-Moscow government in Ukraine, work he concealed by stashing earnings in offshore bank accounts.

‘It is hard to imagine a more righteous prosecution of this act,’ Weissman said.

Manafort faced a choice of whether to represent foreign governments ‘or represent the United States. And he chose to represent foreign governments.’

As he did last week, Manafort appeared in court in a wheel chair. This time, he was wearing a suit. In Virginia, he wore a prison jump suit.

Manafort, 69, faces up to 10 additional years in prison when he is sentenced Wednesday in Washington in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A judge in Virginia last week sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison, far below sentencing guidelines that allowed for more than two decades in prison, prompting national debate about disparities in how rich and poor defendants are treated by the criminal justice system.

Brian Ketcham(L) and Kevin Downing, lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, arrive at the US District Court in Washington, DC

As U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington decides whether the sentences should run consecutively or at the same time, she is likely to take into account allegations by prosecutors that Manafort tampered with witnesses after he was charged and that he lied to investigators even after he pleaded guilty and pledged to cooperate.

The hearing may offer a window into tantalizing allegations that aren’t part of the criminal cases against him but have nonetheless surfaced in recent court filings – that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate the U.S. says has ties to Russian intelligence, and that the two men met secretly during the campaign in an encounter that prosecutors say cuts ‘to the heart’ of their investigation.

Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as his campaign manager Paul Manafort looks on during Trump’s walk through at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 21, 2016

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors say Manafort lied despite his cooperation agreement

This handout image, obtained courtesy of the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office, shows the July 12, 2018 booking photograph of Paul Manafort

WARDROBE UPGRADE: This March 7, 2019, courtroom sketch depicts former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, center in a wheelchair, during his sentencing hearing in federal court before judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Va. Manafort appeared in court in Washington wearing a suit

The sentencing hearings for Manafort mark a bookend of sorts for Mueller’s investigation as it inches toward a conclusion. Manafort and business associate Rick Gates were among the first of 34 people charged, and though the charges against Manafort weren’t tied to his work on the Trump campaign, his foreign entanglements have made him a subject of intrigue to prosecutors assessing whether the campaign colluded with Russia to sway the outcome of the election.

Judge T.S. Ellis noted during Manafort’s sentencing in Virginia that in prior centuries ‘they hung pickpockets’ in Great Britain

Tarnished legacy: Paul Manafort Sr. was three-term mayor of New Britain, CT

A $15,000 ostrich-leather bomber jacket, included in the government’s exhibits admitted into evidence, in Manafort’s trial in Washington, D.C.

Paul Manafort is now a multiple felon. His convictions are from a trial and a guilty plea. Here is the complete list.

On August 21, 2018 by a jury after trial at federal court in Alexandria, VA, found guilty of:

On September 14, 2018, ahead of a trial at federal court in Washington D.C., he pleaded guilty to:

In the plea deal Manafort agreed to co-operate and pleaded guilty to 10 other charges, with the deal saying those would be dropped if he completely co-operated.

But he did not completely co-operate meaning he is also going to be sentenced for:

Wednesday’s sentencing comes in a week of activity for the investigation. Mueller’s prosecutors on Tuesday night updated a judge on the status of cooperation provided by one defendant, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and are expected to do the same later in the week for Gates.

The Mueller team has prosecuted Manafort in both Washington and Virginia related to his foreign consulting work on behalf of a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party. Manafort was convicted of bank and tax fraud in the Virginia case and pleaded guilty in Washington to two conspiracy counts, each punishable by up to five years in prison.

The decision by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to sentence Manafort to 47 months stunned many who’d been following the case given both the guideline calculation of 19.5 to 24 years in prison and the fact that the defendant was convicted of hiding millions of dollars from the IRS in undisclosed foreign bank accounts. But Ellis made clear during the sentencing hearing that he found the government’s sentencing guidelines unduly harsh and declared his own sentence ‘sufficiently punitive.’

‘If anybody in this courtroom doesn’t think so, go and spend a day in the jail or penitentiary of the federal government,’ Ellis said. ‘Spend a week there.’

Manafort has been jailed since last June when Berman Jackson revoked his house arrest over allegations that he and Kilimnik sought to influence witnesses by trying to get them to testify in a certain way.

GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence

Flynn was President Trump’s former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller’s most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired.

He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY: MICHAEL COHEN

Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018

Cohen was Trump’s longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump’s inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump – and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations – and admitted that he acted at the ‘direction’ of ‘Candidate-1’: Donald Trump.

He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from  taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million.

And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and  recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City.

GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT

Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges – witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Awaiting sentence for those

Manafort worked for Trump’s campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.’s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free – in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.

Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to.

GUILTY: RICK GATES

Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Awaiting sentence

Gates was Manafort’s former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns.

GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018

Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank.

He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO

Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison

Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities.

He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release

Van der Zwaan is a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012.

He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik.

GUILTY:  W. SAMUEL PATTEN

Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Awaiting sentence

Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump’s inauguration.

He arranged for an American ‘straw donor’ to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman.

Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named.

CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK

Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia

Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort’s political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S.

He has been linked to  Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia – effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller’s team.

INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS

Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia

Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud.

Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list – which is not made public – and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S.

INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN’S BUSINESS PARTNERS

Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn’s lobbying company, and the two’s business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally. Kian is awaiting trial, Alptekin is still to appear in court

Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called ‘Person A’ in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal.

Kian, vice-president of Flynn’s former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey’s strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him.

Erdogan’s government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn’s firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government.

The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

INDICTED: ROGER STONE

Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Awaiting trial

Stone was a person of interest to Mueller’s investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks.

In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller’s indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.

Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president’s face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal, but as recently as January 4 told Dailymail.com that he doesn’t expect to be indicted.

‘They got nothing,’ he said of the special counsel’s investigation.

According to the federal indictment, Stone gave ‘false and misleading’ testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a ‘rat’ and threatened to ‘take that dog away from you’, in reference to Credico’s pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: ‘Let’s get it on. Prepare to die.’

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