Federal prosecutors on Saturday portrayed Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, as a hardened, remorseless criminal who “repeatedly and brazenly” violated a host of laws over more than a decade and did not deserve any breaks when he is sentenced in coming weeks.
The prosecutors’ sentencing memo, filed in one of the most high-profile cases mounted by the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and unsealed on Saturday, painted a damning portrait of Mr. Manafort, 69, a political consultant who led Mr. Trump’s campaign during a critical five-month period in 2016.
The memo involved one of two federal cases against Mr. Manafort. Prosecutors did not recommend a sentence, instead citing sentencing guidelines of up to 22 years for a wide-ranging conspiracy involving obstruction of justice, money laundering, hidden overseas bank accounts and false statements to the Justice Department. But the two charges Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty to in the case carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.
.. Over all, the prosecutors said, Mr. Manafort’s behavior “reflects a hardened adherence to committing crimes and lack of remorse.” Despite his age, they said he “presents a grave risk of recidivism.” They noted that under advisory sentencing guidelines, Mr. Manafort would face a sentence of 17 to 22 years.
.. The prosecutors reached far back into Mr. Manafort’s career in their efforts to portray him as a calculating lawbreaker. They noted that the Justice Department first warned him in 1986 about flouting the lobbying law known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.
At the time, Mr. Manafort was a director of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation under President Ronald Reagan, and he was faced with a choice: “either resign his political appointment” or “cease all his activities on behalf of foreign principals,” according to the filing.
He chose to resign.
But the prosecutors said that “in spite of these clear warnings and the personal ramifications to him for not adhering to the law, Manafort chose to violate the FARA statute and to get others to as well” in his Ukrainian lobbying.
Mr. Mueller’s team also made no recommendation on whether Mr. Manafort’s sentence in the Washington case should run concurrently with his sentence in the Virginia case. After a lengthy trial in Alexandria, Va., in August, a jury convicted Mr. Manafort of eight felonies including tax fraud and bank fraud — crimes prosecutors said Mr. Manafort committed “for no other reason than greed.”
Sentencing guidelines in that case would call for a prison term of 19 to 24 years.
The order of his sentencing dates may work against Mr. Manafort. He is scheduled to be sentenced first for the financial crimes by Judge T. S. Ellis III of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, and then by Judge Jackson in Washington.
Some allies of Mr. Manafort had hoped that Judge Ellis would have the last word because he seemed more sympathetic to the defense than Judge Jackson, and he might order the sentences to run concurrently.
How We Lost America to Greed and Envy
The US president is hostile to the core values the country used to stand for
A Bigger, Inclusive Table
Jesus’ most consistent social action was eating in new ways and with new people, encountering those who were oppressed or excluded from the system. A great number of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms take place while he’s entering or leaving a house for a meal. In the process he redefines power and the kingdom of God. Jesus shows us that spiritual power is primarily exercised outside the structure of temple and synagogue.
As Christianity developed, the Church moved from Jesus’ meal with open table fellowship to its continuance in the relatively safe ritual meal we call the Eucharist. Unfortunately, that ritual itself came to redefine social reality in a negative way, in terms of worthiness and unworthiness—the opposite of Jesus’ intention! Even if we deny that our intention is to define membership, it is clearly the practical message people hear today. It is strange and inconsistent that sins of marriage and sexuality seem to be the only ones that exclude people from the table when other sins like greed and hatefulness are more of a public scandal.
Notice how Jesus is accused by his contemporaries. By one side, he’s criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:10-11, for example); by the other side, he’s judged for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36-50, 11: 37-54, 14:1). He ate with both sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a bad reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36-37), and he even invited himself over to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1-10). He didn’t please anybody, it seems, always breaking the rules and making a bigger table.
During Jesus’ time, religious law was being interpreted almost exclusively through the Book of Leviticus, particularly chapters 17-24, the Law of Holiness. Jesus critiques his own tradition. He refuses to interpret the Mosaic law in terms of inclusion/exclusion, the symbolic self-identification of Judaism as the righteous, pure, elite group. Jesus continually interprets the Law of Holiness in terms of the God whom he has met—and that God is always compassion and mercy.
Richard Rohr Meditation: Cultivating Justice
Prayer is a way of connecting with our source. It is about being centered, grounded, mindful of the holy, the presence of the sacred and the precious. . . .
- Prayer can help us to connect with the poor with open eyes and hearts.
- It is prayer that can allow us to educate with patience, love and understanding.
- It is prayer that can enable us to move to a simpler lifestyle.
- And it is prayer that will allow us to do this with conviction and joy.
.. And whether or not we pray is as obvious as whether or not we have put our clothes on. For example, the compulsive, frantic, angry, cynical, unintegrated rambling from project to project—even from peace project to peace project—may speak of good intentions, but also of an uneasy and untended inner life. It is possible . . . to do much harm because we have not taken the time to pray.
.. It is so very difficult to lead people into a willing critique of their politics, their country, their allegiances, without some awareness of how violence is so often the handmaid of greed and power.