Paul Manafort gets just 47 MONTHS in jail for tax and bank fraud after judge calls Mueller's demand for 19 to 24 YEARS 'excessive' and says Trump's wheelchair-bound campaign chair 'lived an otherwise blameless life'
- Judge T.S. Ellis handed down the sentence of less than four years
- His sentence came after Manafort sought compassion but did not express remorse
- Prosecutors said Paul Manafort, 69, didn't provide valuable information
- They said he lied to investigators during his 50 hours of interviews
- His sentencing hearing began Thursday afternoon
- Manafort said he was 'humiliated' and 'shunned'
- Judge Ellis noted they used to HANG pickpockets in Britain
- Judge was criticized during trial for berating prosecutors and said he may have made a mistake by venting before the jury
- Manafort wore a green jumpsuit that said 'Alexandria Inmate' on the back
- Trump's former campaign chair is facing 24 years in jail for tax and bank fraud
- He 'blames everyone' but himself 'for his own criminal choices', documents state
- Prosecutors filed the court documents to counter Manafort's pleas for leniency
The federal judge overseeing Paul Manafort's sentencing handed down a sentence of just 47 months after the former Trump campaign chair pleaded for leniency from his wheelchair but did not express remorse.
The four-year sentence is well below what prosecutors were seeking – and years below what top prosecutors and litigators had been predicting.
Judge T.S. Ellis, who handed down the sentence, said the former Donald Trump campaign chairman should not get credit for cooperating with authorities – but also said the former lobbyist and power-broker had lived an 'otherwise blameless life.'
Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of up to 24 years, and under his current sentence Manafort would have to serve less than four.
After the judge left the room once his sentence was pronounced, Manafort – who had pleaded for 'compassion' from his wheelchair – stood up and looked toward his wife, Kathleen.
Manafort has already served several months behind bars during trial – time for which he may well receive credit. He will likely turn 70 at a prison camp in Cumberland, Maryland and is eligible for release in 38 months.
He faces further sentencing in federal court next week in Washington, D.C. before Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who must decide whether his sentences would be served concurrently.
Judge Ellis lauded aspects of Manafort's character even after a jury convicted him of felony corruption crimes and prosecutors sought to put him away for what could be the rest of his life. He called that sentence, built from sentencing guidelines, 'excessive.'
The federal judge overseeing Paul Manafort's sentencing handed down a sentence of just 47 months after the former Trump campaign chair pleaded for leniency from his wheelchair but did not express remorse on Thursday
Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, is facing up to 24 years in jail for bank and tax fraud. Pictured leaving the federal courthouse in Washington last April
The 78-year-old judge - who drew the ire of the liberal media throughout last summer's trial for perceived bias in favor of the defense - said that for all its intricacies, it was fairly typical fraud case.
'Hiding money from the government so you don't have to pay taxes on it,' he told the court.
'In essence that’s a theft of money from everyone who pays their taxes. If you don't pay your fair share you are taking away from the communal pool.'
Ellis said Manafort had no criminal history and highlighted his academic achievements in attending nearby Georgetown University and graduating from law school there.
He said the longtime lobbyist's crimes were 'very serious' but added: 'He has lived an otherwise blameless life. He has also earned the admiration of a number of people.
'Mr Manafort has engaged in some good things and has been a good friend and generous to others. Of course that does not erase his criminal conduct.'
Reaching his decision, Ellis said he was broadly in favor of sentencing guidelines that had brought an end to a 'staggering' variety of punishments for the same crimes.
'They are not mandatory. They are advisory,' he nonetheless insisted, noting that fraud cases typically resulted in much lower sentences.
'The government cannot sweep away the history of all these previous sentences.'
Ellis drew particularly on one of his previous cases, that of former University of Rochester business professor Daniel Horsky who concealed over $220 million in offshore banks.
Ellis sentenced the 71-year-old academic to seven months in federal prison despite having the opportunity to lock him up for five years.
'All of these cases suggest to me that a sentence of 19 to 24 years would be unwarranted discrepancy,' the judge said of Manafort's case.
Ellis had begun Thursday's proceedings by telling Manafort that he was there to sentence him strictly for the crimes he admitted and not for alleged involvement in Trump-Russia collusion.
'He is not before the court because of any allegation the he or anyone at his direction colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election,’ he said.
Ellis said he agreed with a probation report that Manafort did not deserve any credit for accepting responsibility for his crimes after he pleaded not guilty and insisted on a trial.
However he did say he would at least take into consideration the 50 hours Manafort spent 'spilling his guts' to Mueller's team.
That suggestion was bitterly contested by government prosecutor Greg Andres who said: 'The reason we met for 50 hours was because he lied. And because he lied it took longer.’
Andres said Manafort had failed to provide valuable cooperation and had tried to fob off investigators with details that were already in existing documents and filings.
'It wasn't 50 hours of information we didn't know. It certainly wasn't information that was useful,' he added.
Thursday's sentence will reignite a debate about possible bias that first exploded during the trial phase, when Federal prosecutors filed a string of complaints that Ellis was belittling their case and badgering them.
Ellis, a Reagan appointee who has been on the bench for 31 years and has a reputation for toughness, even went as far as to taunt one attorney for supposedly crying during the proceedings.
After yelling at Andres for not looking at him, Ellis said: 'I understand how frustrated you are. In fact, there’s tears in your eyes right now.'
He was later forced into a humbling apology for berating another government attorney Uzo Asonye for letting a witnesses observe the trial before giving evidence.
After it was pointed out from court transcripts that Ellis had in fact given IRS Agent Matthew Welch express permission to sit inside court, he was forced to tell jurors: 'I was probably wrong. This robe doesn't make me any more than human.'
Ellis also barred prosecutors from using the term ‘oligarch’ to describe wealthy Ukrainian businessmen, arguing that it was ‘pejorative’ and warning prosecutors not to pore over Manafort’s excessive spending habits.
'It isn’t a crime to have a lot of money and be profligate in your spending,' he told the court.
The judge spoke after the disgraced former power player and top Trump adviser pleaded for leniency – stressing how far he has fallen and the toll his legal saga and conviction has taken on his personal life – but notably did not apologize to the court.
'Humiliated and shunned would be a gross understatement,' Manafort told the court, as his sentencing hearing ran for hours.
Manafort was given leave to remain in his seat because of his supposed poor health but Judge Ellis interrupted him immediately because the court couldn't out make what he was saying.
'The last two years of my life have been the most difficult that my family and I has ever experienced,' Manafort repeated in a low voice, betraying barely a flicker of emotion and staring down at his notes.
'The person that the media has described me as is not someone I recognize. To say I've been humiliated and shames is a gross understatement.'
Manafort told the court he hoped in time to 'show the world who I know I really am.'
He also complained that his mental health had deteriorated after being held in solitary at the Alexandria Detention Center ever since his bail was cancelled for alleged witness tampering.
The closest he came to taking responsibility for the eight tax and bank fraud charges he was convicted off last August was when the father-of-two said: 'I know it is my conduct that has brought me here.'
But he went on to complain: 'I can tell you I feel the punishment from these procedures already. My life professionally and financially is a shambles.
'Being in solitary confinement I've had much time to reflect on my life and choices.'
Manafort ended by thanking the court for a fair trial. Addressing the judge directly, he added: 'I am ready for your decision and I ask for your compassion.'
In his own sentencing remarks, Ellis admonished Manafort for failing to say sorry to the US taxpayers and the banks he defrauded.
'I was surprised I did not hear you express regret for engaging in wrongful conduct,' he said. 'In other words you did not say that I really, really regret not doing what the law requires.’
Judge Ellis ordered that restitution should be no less $6 million and no more than $25 million. He also hit Manafort with a $50,000 fine.
Judge Ellis anticipated that his punishment could spark controversy, saying: ‘I don’t expect the sentence I’m about to announce to meet with everyone’s approval.’
He told Manafort: ‘Life is making choices Mr Manafort and living with the choices you make.
‘You made choices and engaged in criminal conduct and there will be consequences for that decision.’
Manafort has already forfeited two New York properties at the center of proceedings, including a down at heel Brooklyn brownstone he brought for $3 million and used to secure nearly $7million in loans.
But prospectors are now likely to go after a further two properties, a $3 million house in Alexandria where Manafort’s wife is believed to currently reside and a second home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida worth $1.25 million.
Government lawyers think he has a further $4 millions worth of assets tied up in securities and and a $1.5 million life insurance policy.
But even now they do not have a clear picture of the former GOP strategist’s finances because he has yet to produce all the required documents they have asked for, a fact that prosecutors said was ‘particularly troubling’ given the nature of his crimes.
Manafort remained seated until the very last moment when he slowly rose to his feet as Judge Ellis left the courthouse, using a wooden cane to balance himself.
He turned and flashed a brief smile at his 66-year-old wife Kathleen, who had sat silently a few feet behind him in the public gallery as she had throughout his three week trial late last summer.
With that Manafort sank back in his wheelchair and a court guard quickly wheeled him out of the room.
His lawyers have claimed in filings that Manafort suffered from gout and depression. He appeared at a previous court hearing in a wheelchair because of an undisclosed ailment causing his leg to swell.
Attorneys (L and C) for Paul Manafort, former campaign manager of President Donald Trump, arrive at the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 7, 2019 for sentencing in Manafort's fraud case
Trump in August hailed Manafort as a 'brave man' with a 'wonderful family' and saluted him for failing to 'break' – unlike Michael Cohen, whom he termed a 'rat.'
The early statements from the bench at first raised the possibility that Manafort, 69, could be in for an extended sentence.
In one particularly stark comment, Judge Ellis observed that he has sometimes taken a hard line on convicts, and noted that centuries ago in Britain 'they hung pickpockets.'
Prosecutors for Special Counsel Robert Mueller took the opportunity to unload on Manafort, who they accuse of lying despite an agreement to cooperate in their expansive Russia probe.
'Manafort did not provide valuable information to the special counsel that wasn't already known,' prosecutors Greg Andres told the judge, NBC reported. 'He told us 50 hours of things we already knew. He did not provide information that was useful.
Prosecutors said Manafort was wealthy, worth $4 million, and was equipped to make restitution and pay fines for the corruption crimes he was convicted of committing.
Seven months after his conviction on tax and bank fraud charges, Manafort appeared in a federal courtroom to receive his jail sentence Thursday.
Manafort, who has been held in solitary confinement in a Virginia jail, appeared in a green state-issued jumpsuit like the one he wore in his mugshot. It said 'Alexandria Inmate' on the back.
He was seen inside the courtroom seated in a wheel chair and a cane, with his wife Kathleen present.
From the start of the hearing, Judge Ellis sought to establish that Manafort was not being punished for crimes having to do with Special Robert Mueller's probe of Russian election interference.
Prosecutors have said they were looking into Manafort before Trump decided to hire him to helm his delegate counting and campaign effort.
Judge T.S. Ellis noted that in prior centuries 'they hung pickpockets' in Great Britain
Court discussion touched on the $5.5 million loan Manafort tried to get on his Brooklyn brownstone
'He is not before the court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government,' said Ellis, CNN reported.
But his later comments indicated Manafort wouldn't be getting breaks. The judge said he would not get credit for cooperating with prosecutors, or for his acceptance of responsibility.
Prosecutors say he lied despite his promise to cooperate with the Mueller probe.
Manafort, who was known to spent thousands each year on custom-tailored suits, and even a a $15,000 ostrich leather bomber jacket, sported a jump suit that said 'Alexandria Inmate.'
At the start of the case, the judge told an anecdote about previous cases where he has been hard on convicted criminals. He noted that in prior centuries 'they hung pickpockets' in Great Britain.
Lawyers on both sides sparred over Manafort's failed effort to secure a $5.5 million construction loan to update his Brooklyn Brownstone. The loan was also a source of contention at trial, when Judge Ellis urged prosecutors to focus on a loan 'that was granted.'
Prosecutors argued that Manafort failed to disclose he already had a loan on the home, and overstated the income of his firm by $2 million to get it.
The former Trump advisor who once strode the globe, helped install foreign leaders in power, stashed funds in offshore havens, and burned through money on tailored suits and Persian carpets is looking at a sentence that could but him behind bars for the rest of his life.
He was convicted in August on eight counts of bank fraud, filing false tax returns, and failing to disclose a foreign bank account as he stashed millions abroad. Prosecutors say he failed to pay more than $6 million in taxes – even as he spent lavishly buying himself fine suits and even an ostrich jacket.
Judge Ellis's comment about collusion immediately evoked Manafort's August trial, where the judge issued comments from the bench that were sometimes critical of prosecutors and the evidence they assembled.
At one point the judge admitted, 'I may have made a mistake' by tearing into prosecutors for allowing a government tax expert to be seated in the courtroom, even though prosecutors had obtained advance permission. The judge said he was 'probably wrong.'
With prosecutors recommending he spend 24 years in jail for the corruption charges a jury convicted him of committing, Manafort is positioned to spend more time in prison than any figure yet in Trump's orbit to face prosecution.
Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen is soon reporting to jail. Manafort's actions since his trial seven months ago have not helped his situation. Federal prosecutors accuse him of repeatedly lying despite his pledge after his conviction to cooperate in the wide-reaching Mueller probe.
Manafort has shown no remorse and 'blames everyone' but himself, prosecutors say. His sentencing will be another milestone in an investigation that began before Trump decided to bring on the longtime powerbroker who represented a wealth of shadowy clients.
A member of the defense team for former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives at the US District Court for a sentencing hearing in Alexandria, Virginia
Federal prosecutors said in a court filing two days ahead of his sentencing hearing Thursday that Manafort, 69, has not taken any responsibility for his crimes.
He was convicted last summer of eight financial crimes including tax and bank fraud.
Manafort's wife, Kathleen Manafort, who also attended his trial, was present in the courtroom.
Manafort was one of several key figures who attended the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians, although he has not been charged with any crime connected to the sit-down, which also included Donald Trump Jr. and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
According to a court document that was unsealed in January, Manafort shared polling information during the campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate who has been tied to Russian intelligence.
Prosecutors with special counsel Robert Mueller's office said on Tuesday that Manafort 'blames everyone from the Special Counsel's Office to his Ukrainian clients for his own criminal choices'.
They added that Manafort was under investigation by the Justice Department before Mueller was appointed special counsel in May 2017.
The filing was aimed at persuading a judge to reject Manafort's pleas for leniency at Thursday's sentencing hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, where he faces up to 24 years in prison.
Prosecutors with special counsel Robert Mueller's (pictured in 2007 testifying in Capitol Hill) office said on Tuesday that Manafort 'blames everyone from the Special Counsel's Office to his Ukrainian clients for his own criminal choices'
Tarnished legacy: Paul Manafort Sr. was three-term mayor of New Britain, CT
A $15,000 ostrich-leather bomber jacket, included in the government's exhibits admitted into evidence, in Manafort's trial in Washington, D.C.
Jackets included in the government's exhibits admitted into evidence, at the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, are seen in this combination image of pictures released from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office in Washington, DC, U.S. on August 1, 2018
Prosecutors wrote: 'Manafort suggests, for example, that but for the appointment of the Special Counsel's Office, he would not have been charged in connection with hiding more than $55 million abroad, failing to pay more than $6 million in taxes, and defrauding three financial institutions of more than $25 million dollars.'
Manafort was convicted in August of eight financial crimes in the Virginia case.
He faces another sentencing hearing later this month following a guilty plea in Washington, D.C..
Manafort's youngest daughter, Andrea Manafort Shand, had written a letter pleading for leniency, calling her father 'a living example of selfless and generosity.' But her older sister Jessica did not submit a letter on her father's behalf. And in hacked texts between the two published by Business Insider in 2017, Shand was less generous: saying he has 'no moral or legal compass' and that the family fortune was earned from 'blood money.'
Manafort banked millions representing clients such as Moscow-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Paul Manafort's daughter Andrea Manafort Shand wrote a letter on his behalf
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Manafort worked as President Trump campaign chairman. Pictured the president speaking before the signing of an Executive Order on veterans suicide
Prosecutors also rejected Manafort's argument that his age of 69 should be taken into account, saying he can and should receive proper medical care in prison.
His legal team argued that Manafort chose to go to trial on the charges in Virginia even after Mueller declined to give a reasonable plea offer.
They asked the judge to take into account the fact that Manafort is a 'first-time offender' as well as consider his age and health.
In Virginia he was convicted by a jury of eight felony counts in a tax and bank fraud case and he has been in jail since last June.
On August 21 last year he was found guilty of five counts of submitting false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account.
Manafort pleaded guilty last year to two felony counts - conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice - related to his illegal lobbying.
The plea came after a jury in a separate case in Virginia convicted Manafort on eight financial charges involving the hiding of millions of dollars from the IRS that he made overseas.
As part of the plea agreement, Manafort agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, but late last year, Mueller's team said he had lied to federal agents and a grand jury.
His lawyers also dismissed prosecutors' characterization of Manafort as a hardened criminal, saying he was merely a wealthy consultant who committed 'garden variety' crimes by illegally lobbying for Ukrainian interests and hiding millions from the IRS.
The Virginia sentence will likely be stronger than what he'll face in the Washington criminal case, where he accepted a guilty plea deal and admitted to one count of conspiracy against th United States and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
That case stems from illegal lobbying he carried out on behalf of Ukrainian interests and a meeting with Konstantin Kilimnik - a business associate who the U.S. says has ties to Russian intelligence.
Manafort was a longtime political consultant who once led Donald Trump's presidential campaign, but hasn't been accused of any crimes related to Russian election interference.
But court papers have revealed Manafort gave Kilimnik polling data related to the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
A Mueller prosecutor also said that an August 2016 meeting between the two men goes to the 'heart' of the Russia probe.
The meeting involved a discussion of a potential peace plan between Russia and Ukraine, but many other details about it have been redacted in court papers.
Mueller's final tally: Trump's inner circle of convicts and turncoats - and 25 wanted Russian trolls
GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence
Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired.
He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.
GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN
Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018
Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case.
Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump.
He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million.
And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City.
GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT
Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller
Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.
Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to.
Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys.
GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES
Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018
Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns.
GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018
Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank.
GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO
Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison
Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities.
GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release
Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012.
He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired.
GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN
Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019
Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration.
He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman.
Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named.
CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK
Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia
Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S.
He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team.
INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS
Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia
Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud.
Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S.
INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS
Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally.
Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal.
Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him.
Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government.
The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election.
GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE
Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence
Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks.
In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.
Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal.
'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation.
Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.'
CLEARED: GREG CRAIG
Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig.
Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there.
Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements.
The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Craig was cleared on September 9 2019.
POLITICS, SEX, AND LIES: THE RISE AND FALL OF PAUL MANAFORT
In the span of just two years, Paul Manafort has gone from one of Washington's most sought-after Republican lobbyists to a political pariah with a shattered family.
'My life - personally and professionally - is in shambles,' he told Judge T.S. Ellis III, in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia on March 7.
'The last two years have been the most difficult years for my family. Humiliated and would be a gross understatement.'
He laid it on thicker to the next sentencing judge, Amy Berman Jackson, in Washington D.C. on March 13: 'I will be 70 years old in a few weeks. My wife is 66. She needs me. I need her. Please let me and my wife be together.'
Self-pitying certainly, but hardly wrong. Sitting in a wheelchair and contemplating the real prospect of dying behind bars, Manafort was diminished in every way, the extravagantly-tailored and immaculately connected powerbroker who could ask for millions for his counsel now wearing prison green as he asked not for money but compassion.
Typically though, the whole story was not on display; in recent years, Manafort had betrayed his wife with a mistress 30 years his junior who he put up in a New York apartment and handed an unlimited credit card.
That infidelity was only another staging post on the long and spectacular fall from grace for the 69-year-old former Trump campaign manager, the son of a small-town mayor who went on to work for four U.S. presidents and made his fortune as the Washington mouthpiece for some of the world's most notorious dictators.
Today Manafort has few defenders in the nation's capital, after being convicted of tax fraud and money laundering by special counsel Robert Mueller - who first secured a guilty verdict from a jury then a plea deal on the eve of a second trial.
Even Manafort's former boss, President Trump, claimed he never would have hired the former lobbyist if he had known about the allegations.
'Paul Manafort came into the campaign very late and was with us for a short period of time (he represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole & many others over the years), but we should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him, and he wouldn't have been hired!' wrote Trump in a Twitter post in June 2018.
The president had faced Manafort co-operating with Robert Mueller 'fully and truthfully.'
But even that was beyond the ability of Manafort, who Mueller's prosecutors charge lied to them after his agreement to cooperate.
The power brokers: Paul Manafort, his future business partners Roger Stone and Lee Atwater, were photographed as young Republican operatives. Stone, a Trump confidante and notorious political dirty trickster is now fighting off the Mueller probe himself; Atwater died in 1991, a former RNC chairman with a reputation for dirty campaigns. All three cashed in on their political work by lobbying those they got elected
Manafort, the grandson of an Italian immigrant, was raised in a staunch Republican home in New Britain, Connecticut.
When he was 16, his father Paul John Manafort Sr. was elected mayor of New Britain and served for three terms.
In 1981, Manafort Sr. was indicted – but later acquitted – on perjury charges in a sweeping city corruption and bribery scandal that also ensnared the police and fire chiefs.
After Catholic parochial schools and graduating from Georgetown University Law School, Manafort went on to work as an advisor for Republican Presidents Gerald Ford. It is unclear why he was not drafted for Vietnam.
He went on to serve as an advisor to Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole's presidential campaign.
But he worked out how to turn political advising into a gusher of cash: by lobbying the very politicians they had helped elect.
He co-founded a prominent lobbying firm with ex-Nixon aide Roger Stone, and Lee Atwater, another notorious figure, which shopped their access to top Republicans to U.S. businesses, state and city governments, and anyone who would pay.
The lobbying would be punctuated by periods of working for campaigns - guaranteeing the access on which they depended if their candidates won (which by and large they did).
That came to embrace the wider world too; the Manafort lobbying roster included brutal regimes willing to pay high fees for his services – including Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Zaire military leader Mobutu Sese Seko.
Betrayed: Kathleen Manafort stood by her husband despite his family finding proof of his mistress on Instagram; she attended every minute of his trial and was there when he said he was flipping
Manafort went on to found his own political consulting firm in 2005, bringing on his former intern Rick Gates as his trusted deputy.
He also continued to take on controversial clients. In 2010, Manafort helped elect Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, head of Ukraine's Putin-allied Party of Regions.
The victory paid off – between 2010 and 2014, federal investigators said Manafort's firm earned 'a cash spigot': $60 million in fees from the Party of Regions' political patrons.
According to prosecutors, Manafort stashed the funds away in a series of offshore bank accounts and shell companies, and failed to disclose the income in his tax returns. In total, they claim he dodged taxes on $15 million.
But after Yanukovych was voted out of power by Ukraine's parliament in 2014, Manafort's fortunes suddenly changed. He stopped getting payments from Yanukovych's wealthy oligarch supporters, and started to have trouble paying his bills.
This is when prosecutors claim Manafort started applying for loans using phony financial information. In total, they said he scammed banks out of $20 million.
Manafort's then-alleged crimes were uncovered during the course of a special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller, who has been investigating potential Russian interference in the 2016 election and collusion with the Trump campaign.
Even before the charges were filed against him, Manafort's personal life had been unravelling, according to years of hacked text messages between his daughters Andrea, 32, and Jessica, 36, that were posted online.
According to the messages, Manafort's family had caught him having an affair with a woman who was around the same age as his daughters, renting a pricey house for her in the Hamptons and paying her credit card bill.
They discovered the affair after seeing the woman's posts boasting about her expensive travel and dinners on Instagram.
Manafort, who was undergoing an emotional breakdown according to the messages, committed himself to a psychiatric clinic in Arizona in 2015.
Texts: Manafort's daughters Jessica (left, with now ex-husband Jeff Yohai, who flipped) and Andrea (right with husband Christopher Shand) exchanged text messages which were hacked revealing his affairs and calling him a psychopath. Jessica has changed her name to Bond, her mother's maiden name
Fruits of lobbying: This is the condo overlooking the Potomac where the FBI raided Manafort on orders from Mueller. He bought it for $2.75 million, part of a property empire worth conservatively $15 million
After he was released in 2016 - claiming he had 'new insight' into himself - he linked up with the Trump campaign and became the candidate's campaign manager during the crucial months surrounding the Republican National Convention.
His daughter Andrea took a different view of that. She wrote in a leaked text to a friend, who was not named in the leak: 'Trump probably has more morals than my dad. Which is really just saying something about my dad. My dad is a psycho!!! At least trump let his wives leave him. Plus, Trump has been a good father.'
And she also texted: 'Trump waited a little too long in my opinion, but I can attest to the fact that he has now hired one of the world's greatest manipulators. I hope my dad pulls it off. Then I can sell my memoir with all his dirty secrets for a pretty penny.'
But getting in tow with Trump in June 2016, his neighbor in Trump Tower, was to prove catastrophic.
Trump in fact fired him in August 2017 when questions about Manafort's dealings with Russians in Ukraine started to surface.
Manafort returned to his shadowy lobbying life, but then he was caught up in the Mueller probe.
In July 2017 his home in Alexandria was raided before dawn; in October he and his loyal deputy Gates were indicted, with charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, failing to register as foreign agents and conspiracy against the United States.
Manafort's legal strategy was to split the cases in two, meaning two separate trials - one for the monetary charges, the second conspiracy and failing to register as a foreign agent.
But before they began, Gates took a plea bargain, turning on his boss, agreeing to cooperate fully and truthfully with Mueller. From there Manafort's path was consistently downhill.
In Washington D.C. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, proved tough; she had him locked up before trial when Mueller accused him of witness tampering.
Turned: Rick Gates
That meant he attended his first trial, in Virginia, from jail, walking in every day with federal marshals and walking out in handcuffs.
In Virginia, Ronald Reagan-appointee T.S. Ellis III presided over the first trial in August 2018. Manafort and his supporters might have been cheered by his apparent toughness on the Mueller prosecutors, including berating them in front of the jury, and repeated demands for them to hurry up.
But when the jury returned its guilty verdicts on eight of the 18 counts, other legal observers said Ellis was making sure the case could not be appealed. Ellis declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts, which meant that Mueller could keep them in reserve for a second trial.
And if there were any lingering thoughts that the judge had sympathy for the felon, Ellis told Manafort that he would be wearing prison, not regular, clothing for subsequent hearings.
The next month his second trial was due to begin but Manafort then decided, finally, to seek a deal with Mueller, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering.
He also admitted to most of the 10 charges which the jury could not reach a verdict on the previous month, and - crucially - agreed to cooperate fully and truthfully with Mueller.
But he could not even manage that; by November, Mueller filed a court document accusing him of lying in breach of the plea deal.
The next month they revealed Manafort's attorney had briefed the White House on his dealings with Mueller.
Then in January came a moment which showed Manafort still had the power to shock: Mueller revealed in a court filing that he had passed Trump campaign polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, his one-time aide who has been named as a suspected Russian intelligence asset.
In a February hearing Mueller's prosecutors went further, suggesting Manafort might have lied about passing on the polling data to boost his chances of a presidential pardon.
Judge Berman Jackson ruled he had lied and set his sentencing for March; his sentencing in Virginia will come after that.
If he were to get a pardon, the peril is hardly over; New York state's attorney general is investigating his tax fraud to see if he could be prosecuted for evading state taxes. Presidential pardons do not apply in state courts.
Left in tatters is a reputation, a fortune, and a family.
His elder daughter, Jessica Manafort filed to change her name to Jessica Bond in August 2018, after his conviction, telling the Los Angeles Times: 'I am a passionate liberal and a registered Democrat and this has been difficult for me.'
Despite the clearly unhappy family, Manafort's wife Kathleen stood by him in the face of his infidelity.
She loyally attended each day of his tax fraud trial, always sitting in the row directly behind his defense table.
Tarnished legacy: Paul Manafort Sr. was three-term mayor of New Britain, CT
Since June 2018, Manafort has been incarcerated in a county jail in Alexandria.
Largely held in solitary confinement for his own safety, his health has clearly suffered. He attended some hearings in a wheelchair and his legal team disclosed he had been diagnosed with gout.
Perhaps more stinging to his vanity, in a mug shot, the fashion-conscious Manafort sported a jailhouse jumpsuit and shadowy stubble. His brown hair, which he previously dyed, is now tinged with grey.
The former lobbyist, who once spent $18,000 on a python skin jacket, has also been forced to attend his trial without socks – because he reportedly balked at the white ones he is required to wear as an inmate.
He has depression and anxiety and his lawyers complained he had little contact with his family. In letters submitted ahead of his sentence family members pleaded for leniency.
But there were no letters from the rich, powerful Republicans who Manafort had counted as his friends.
Manafort's conviction even impacted the legacy of his father, the popular three-term mayor in New Britain, Connecticut, from 1965 to 1971.
In August 2018 the city changed a street named after the former mayor from 'Paul Manafort Drive' to 'Paul Manafort Sr. Drive.'
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