Paul Manafort will be sentenced today by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who can give him a maximum of 10 years.
Today’s hearing is poised to rehash the long and difficult road Manafort has had in her Washington, DC, courtroom and with prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.
So how harsh will Jackson be? Manafort has far more reason to fear Jackson’s judgment than Judge T.S. Ellis, who during last week’s sentencing said Manafort has “lived an otherwise blameless life.”
In the Virginia case, it was a straightforward proceeding leading up to trial and through the trial. Manafort never crossed Ellis’s line in that court and faced a relatively humdrum set of financial charges. Ellis also spoke to prosecutors more harshly than Manafort, and even publicly described his displeasure with the special counsel office’s pursuits.
In Jackson’s court, the climate is planets away.
For one, she reprimanded Manafort’s attorney Kevin Downing repeatedly for acting or speaking out of turn.
At a recent sealed hearing, Downing’s and Jackson’s raised voices could be heard outside the courtroom. Jackson even warned Downing, “Don’t. Don’t,” when he tried to raise news coverage of Manafort’s Virginia trial. She’s also warned him of being smug and overbearing and, most recently, called defense tactics “disingenuous.”
And that’s just Manafort’s lawyer.
Manafort broke the bail terms Jackson set, flouted the gag order she set, tampered with witnesses while out on bail and then broke the plea agreement she had accepted by lying. The case has dragged on for almost 17 months, with more than 500 filings and numerous denials of Manafort’s defense.
Jackson sent Manafort to jail in June.