Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign chief, sentenced to 'shockingly lenient' 47 months in jail in Robert Mueller case

New York: Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, 69, has gotten away with what legal pundits are describing as a “shockingly lenient” sentence of 47 months in jail for eight criminal counts of tax and bank fraud in the only case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller that has gone to trial so far. Robert Mueller is investigating possible Russian collusion in the Donald Trump 2016 campaign. Manafort also faces up to 10 years in another Mueller-led case next week. The breadcrumbs in the Manafort case from Day One have been this: An extraordinary level of connections and information sharing with Russian and Ukrainian political operatives.

The charges against Manafort in today’s sentencing were unrelated to his work on the Trump campaign or the central focus of Mueller’s investigation. Analysts are unanimous in how they are unpacking this sentencing for a man who has stonewalled non-stop against the Mueller probe: “This judge does not like Mueller and he has rewarded Manafort for not co-operating”.

“Law students going to school in the Robert Mueller years should understand that Paul Manafort has got the special, clubby treatment reserved for white Americans in American courts,” says MSNBC’s Ari Melber, moments after the sentencing.

Federal sentencing guidelines call for a term of roughly 20 years but the judge today said that sounded too harsh for a man who have lived an “otherwise blameless life”. Today’s Manafort sentence was more about the judge and how he thinks about the Mueller probe than about the man going to jail.

Given the collection of crooks, conmen and drifters running rings around the current White House, it’s easy to lose sight of what the Manafort jail term means. Manafort was the single most important person in the 2016 Trump campaign. Manafort was convicted last year of hiding from the IRS millions of dollars he earned from his work advising Ukrainian politicians.

Manafort was wheeled into the courtroom late Thursday afternoon wearing his green jumpsuit uniform from the Alexandria jail, where he has spent many months in solitary confinement. Defense lawyers say Manafort is suffering from gout and poor health. A jury in Alexandria convicted Manafort last year on eight counts of tax and bank fraud related to his overseas work advising politicians in Ukraine and that was the case in court today.

US networks pulled out old clips of Donald Trump saying what a good man Paul Manafort is and how much he has gone through. Russia investigation watchers say Manafort’s statement to the judge today seems like “a pardon play although it’s late in the game.” The signal Manafort is sending to the White House is likely that he has not co-operated with prosecutors. Trump, though, has tried to play down his connection to Paul Manafort after things began going south but F.B.I. wiretaps show Manafort and Trump remained in contact long after Manafort resigned from the campaign.

Paul Manafort made a short statement just before he was sentenced. “The last two years have been very difficult for my family. To say that I have been humiliated and shunned would be an understatement. I have felt punishment during these proceedings”, Manafort told the judge but did not apologize for his actions or speak to the details of what he did for Donald Trump.

Those in the courtroom say this is Manafort’s shorthand for “I feel really bad that I got caught”.

When news broke last year that Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Manafort had shared internal polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian business associate with ties to Russian intelligence, the line between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin began to come into sharper focus. Trump, who constantly discredited polling firms, had five polling firms working for him during the campaign. All these were hired after Manafort joined the campaign, in March, 2016, without pay.

There was a time, barely a year ago, when there was just the Mueller probe and little else. In the time between then and now, the longlist of legal cases involving the US president’s innermost circle has exploded. The grim lesson from the Manafort trial echoes the warning Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen had for Republicans in Congress during his seven hour testimony the other day - that those who cover-up for the US president may end up like Cohen (and Manafort).