Paul Manafort. Lied to the federal prosecutors; lied to the federal grand jury about everything under the sun.
Judge Jackson said of Paul Manafort that he had used his many talents as a strategist to evade taxes, deceive banks, subvert lobbying laws and obstruct justice — all so he could sustain an “ostentatiously opulent” lifestyle with “more houses than a family can enjoy, more suits than one man can wear.” That’s even aside from the millions of dollars he was paid by Viktor Yanukovych the former president of Ukraine under the table to keep that Russian Stooge in office.
Judge Jackson said “It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the amount of money involved. There is no question that this defendant knew better and he knew what he was doing.”
Judge Ellis also sentenced Manafort in another court for bank fraud, stashing money in overseas banks and defrauding the IRS by making false claims on his tax statements every year from 2010 to 2014.
Judge Ellis gave Manfort a 47 month sentence; Judge Jackson gave him and addition 43 months. He is supposed to serve 90 months in prison but the odds are that Trump will pardon him for keeping his mouth shut. Judge Ellis said Manafort lived an otherwise blameless life and because of that gave him astoundingly low sentence compared to the court guidelines.
After each sentencing Manafort’s lawyer came out of the court and pointed out there was no finding the Manafort colluded with Russia. He did not mention that issue was not before either judge. It is like the police are in the middle of that investigation of a guy who is suspected of having murdered his wife and the guy is before the court on a charge of operating to endanger. He gets convicted and his lawyer coming out to announce there was no finding by the court that the guy murdered his wife.
Manafort’s lawyer was not speaking to all of us but to Trump. He was saying “look Donald, Paul kept his mouth shut about that collusion stuff, so you know what you have to do now.”
I’m predicting, and you know how good I am at that having predicted on Monday the Boeing aircraft would be grounded, that before the Ides of April Trump will pardon Manafort. He’ll use as the grounds that the Special Counsel Mueller was supposed to investigate collusion with Russia and two judges said he didn’t find it therefore his sentence on other crimes is unjust.
Catherine Greig lied to the federal probation officer about some of her assets. Unlike Paul Manafort she really did live a blameless life. She had no criminal record at the time of her arrest. The crime charged against her involved no violence. It was that she aiding James Whitey Bulger while he was a fugitive for 16 years. Her aid was living with him as his girl friend and doing what a girlfriend does who lives with a guy. There never was any showing that she knew of Bulger’s murders — not that anyone else did except Whitey and his close associates like Flemmi, Weeks and Nee – – at the time she went away with him.
Paul Manafort’s federal sentencing guidelines suggested he do over 22 years in jail. His sentence was 18 years less than the guidelines or about one-fifth of them. Catherine Greig’s guidelines were for about 24 months. Her sentence was for 96 months almost four times the guidelines. Not content with that the prosecutors brought her back before a grand jury to attempt to elicit from her what she and Bulger did while on the lam. Was this motivated by prurient interests? She clammed up and got another 21 months or a total of 117 months in prison.
Manafort will be walking a free man soon despite all his crimes. Greig will wrap up her time in another 18 months. She will always hold the distinct record of having done the longest time in the history of America in federal prison for a person without a record, a first offender, who did not commit a violent crime or a drug related crime. It’s not a record she wanted to hold but it was unfairly thrust upon her by vindictive prosecutors and tainted judges who fell for the Whitey Bulger myth.
Matt :
Prurient ??? … Diction . Not the word that fits unless Catherine was suspected of running a string of Massage parlors .
If you disagree as to whether the Feds were really interested in their sex lives,which is doubtful, then state your case .
Trump should pardon Manafort. His crimes were a decade old, non violent and unrelated to Mueller’s assignment which was to look at Russian collusion. Mueller found no Russian collusion by anyone connected to Trump thus completely exonerating Manafort Tax evasion cases usually involve a year or two in jail. So his penalty was excessive. There are probably a thousand.individuals in DC who have failed to register as foreign lobbyists. Toni Podesta and Greg Craig come to mind. Should everyone of those thousand be prosecuted under the Foreign Lobbyist Registration act or would the buddy system prevent it? 2. The serious crimes committed during the 2016 campaign were done by the Deep State. The Intel Agencies of Britain and the U S combined to spy on the Trump campaign so as to undermine it, to fabricate documents as the predicate to spy and to run a failed coup against our properly elected President. Senator Schumer told Trump not to mess with the Intel guys because they would get you six ways from Sunday. So the American people can’t choose the President without the approval of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA and MI6. Watch out anytime British Intel is involved. Innumerable crimes have been committed by those chaps over the centuries. 3. Who in the Obama Administration leaked the Signals Intel on General Flynn to the Post? That was the most obvious crime that Mueller should have looked at instead of bank and tax matters of decades gone by. Maybe A G Barr will set the record straight and Justice will be done.
Matt, so true. Our vaunted system of Justice in the US wreaks to high heaven . . .it has in my lifetime . . .I’ve seen petty drug dealers of relatively innocuous grass and powdered cocaine get long prison sentences, while Congressman’s wives and the politically connected get slaps on the wrist. I’ve seen a nurse with a clean record who did nothing more as far as I can ascertain as deposit her bookie husbands earnings, and the corrupt FED prosecutors recommended 8 years in prison. KIDD GLOVES for the well connected; BRASS KNUCKLES for the rest of us from the BULLY BOY FEDS who abuse Federal Power: Sadists. Monsieurs Schadenfreudes who delight in others suffering, especially the suffering of the hoi polloi like young Mr Swartz, Kenny Conley, John Connolly, Mr Caswell, Councilman Turner et al