by Chuck Ross
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced Paul Manafort to 73 months in prison Wednesday, days after the former Trump campaign chairman received a 47-month sentence in a separate case in Virginia.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Manafort will serve some of his sentence concurrently with his sentence in Virginia. In all, Manafort will spend around seven-and-a-half years in jail for a variety of crimes related to consulting work he did in Ukraine prior to joining the Trump campaign.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Jackson noted that prosecutors with the special counsel’s office did not present evidence of collusion between Manafort, the Trump campaign and Russians to influence the 2016 election.
“The question of whether there was any collusion with Russia…was not presented in this case, period, therefore it was not resolved by this case,” said Jackson.
Manafort, 69, apologized during brief remarks before Jackson handed down the sentence.
“I am sorry for what I have done and for all the activities that have gotten us here today,” said Manafort, who has already spent nine months in jail as his cases have unfolded. With time off for good behavior, Manafort could end up spending only another six years in jail.
The longtime GOP operative faced between 19 and 24.5 years in prison in the Virginia case, but U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III issued a sentence far below federal sentencing guidelines.
Manafort was convicted of and pleaded guilty to charges related to political consulting work he did in Ukraine prior to joining the Trump campaign in 2016.
Manafort pleaded guilty on Sept. 14, 2018 in the Washington, D.C., case to charges of conspiracy to launder money, acting as a foreign agent of Ukraine, and witness tampering. He was convicted on Aug. 21, 2018 in Virginia on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.
Jackson sentenced Manafort to 60 months on the conspiracy charge and 13 months on the witness tampering offense. Thirty months of that sentence will run concurrently with the sentence handed down in the Virginia case. The additional 43 months will be tacked on to Manafort’s Virginia sentence, meaning that he will serve 90 months — or seven-and-a-half years — in jail, in all.
The special counsel alleged that Manafort lied to prosecutors even after entering a plea agreement that could have seen time shaved off his prison term. Prosecutors claimed that Manafort lied about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Manafort business partner who is suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence.
Most of the charges Manafort faced dealt with consulting work that the longtime political consultant did in Ukraine from 2004 to 2014. He worked as a PR guru for Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Chuck on Twitter.
