President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort returns to court for the second time in a week on Wednesday and faces up to 10 years in prison on top of the 47-month sentence he’s already received.
US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson can sentence Manafort, 69, to a decade behind bars — five years each for two conspiracy counts he pleaded guilty to in a cooperation deal with special counsel Robert Mueller last year.
Berman, who is likely to take into consideration that Manafort lied to investigators and tampered with witnesses despite the plea deal, will decide whether the sentences will run at the same time or consecutively with the sentence imposed last week.
The sentencing hearing begins at 9:30 a.m.
US District Judge T.S. Ellis in Virginia last Thursday sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison — a drastic departure from the sentencing guidelines that called for the longtime political operative to get between 19 and 24 years.
Ellis made the decision to lessen the punishment because he said he found the government’s sentencing guidelines too harsh — even though Manafort was convicted of hiding millions of dollars he earned while working for a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine from the IRS.
The judge said the nearly four-year sentence was “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,” he said. “Spend a week there.”
The appearance by Manafort, who worked for the Trump campaign for five months during the summer of 2016, will mark the culmination of a two-year investigation into his ties with foreign governments.
Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates were among the first to be charged in Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump or his campaign associates colluded with Russia during the election.
His sentencing also comes as Mueller’s probe appears to be wrapping up and he could submit his findings to Attorney General William Barr.
Manafort has been behind bars since last June, when Jackson revoked his house arrest after prosecutors said he tried to influence the testimony of two witnesses in his case.
The sentencing also sets up the possibility that Trump will pardon his former campaign manager.
The president told reporters last week that he hasn’t discussed a pardon, but also said he felt “very badly” for Manafort, who had gone through a “very rough time.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a briefing on Monday wouldn’t rule it out.
“The president has made his position on that clear,” Sanders said. “He’ll make a decision when he’s ready.”
With Post wires
