“Federal Savings Bank CEO Stephen Calk has been charged with bribery for trying to solicit a position in the Trump administration from former campaign manager Paul Manafort in exchange for $16 million in loans,” Axios reports.
Manafort Disbarred
“The D.C. Court of Appeals on Thursday disbarred Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, because Manafort has been convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy,” the Washington Post reports.
Top GOP Consultant Indicted In South Carolina
“Richard Quinn Sr., a legendary South Carolina Republican consultant, was indicted Thursday by a state grand jury on a dozen charges of perjury and obstruction of justice,” The State reports.
Manafort Told Gates Trump ‘Would Take Care of Us’
After a grand jury indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, Manafort told Gates that it was stupid to plead because he had spoken to the president’s personal attorney and they were “going to take care of us,” the Washington Post reports.
Gates, who cooperated with Mueller, told investigators that Manafort told him that he thought they should “sit tight” and “we’ll be taken care of.”
Roger Stone Connected to Ongoing Investigations
“Roger Stone is connected to investigations Robert Mueller sent to other prosecutors and that continue despite the special counsel having finished his work,” CNN reports.
Roger Stone Says He’s Broke
Things are not going well for Roger Stone, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
In a wide ranging interview, Stone said his living situation has plummeted, his savings are gone and his car was impounded.
Said Stone: “The worst part of this is being broke… I’ve lost my home, my insurance, what little savings I had, my ability to make a living because people pay me to write and talk, and of course the things they want me to write and talk about are the very things I’m not allowed to talk and write about. In the blink of an eye you can lose everything.”
Prosecutors Suspect Manafort Pulling Another Fast One
“Prosecutors suspect Paul Manafort might be trying to secretly claw back about a million dollars he agreed to hand over to the government for his financial crimes — and he could be using the same type of shell company at the core of his legal problems to fake a loan,” CNN reports.
“A mysterious shell company named Woodlawn LLC — which formed in the middle of special cousel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Manafort in August 2017 — claimed in court that it deserves $1 million from Manafort’s forfeiture proceeding. The company says Manafort, who was Donald Trump’s presidential campaign chairman, still owes that amount to pay back a 2017 mortgage loan.”
Roger Stone Back In Court
Los Angeles Times: “Stone is due back in federal court on Thursday to face U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing his case and appears to be running out of patience with him.”
“He first angered the judge last month with an inflammatory Instagram post that included a crosshairs symbol next to her head. In response, Jackson tightened her gag order and barred Stone from saying almost anything in public about the case.”
“But Stone is in hot water again because he failed to tell Jackson about the imminent publication of a book called The Myth of Russian Collusion, an updated version of a tome that was first released shortly after the 2016 election.”
Manafort Indicted In Manhattan
Paul Manafort has been indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.
“Manafort was indicted on 16 counts tied to residential mortgage fraud and conspiracy, the indictment says.”
“Word of the indictment came less than an hour after Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, was sentenced to an additional 43 months in prison by a Washington federal judge on conspiracy charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.”
Manafort Gets 90 Months In Prison
“Paul Manafort received a sentence totalling 90 months in prison after being ordered by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to serve 43 months on top of the 47-month sentence the former Trump campaign chairman was given in Alexandria federal court last week,” the Washington Post reports.
“Judge Amy Berman Jackson pushed back on defense attorneys’ repeated assertions that he was mere collatoral damage in the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.”
Manafort Faces 10 Years In Second Sentencing
Paul Manafort “could see his prison term extended by 10 years Wednesday at his second sentencing for crimes prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Manafort was sentenced last week to nearly four years in prison by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The sentence was widely criticized as lenient since Manafort, 69, was convicted in August of eight charges of bank fraud and tax evasion after a trial in Alexandria, Va.”
Mysterious Payment Made to Manafort Lawyers
CNBC: “The payment, for $125,000, was made in June 2017, halfway through Trump’s first year in office. But it wasn’t disclosed publicly until late last year, when prosecutors accused Manafort in court filings of repeatedly lying to them about where the money actually came from.”
“In the world of presidential campaign fundraising, where millions of dollars are often raised and spent in a matter of weeks, $125,000 can seem like a drop in the bucket.”
“But the route this money traveled, from its origin as a donation made to a pro-Trump political group, to its final destination in the bank account of Manafort’s attorney, offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of relationships Manafort built over 40 years in Republican politics.”
Trump Says He Feels Badly for Manafort
President Trump said that he feels “very badly” for his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, the Daily Beast reports.
Said Trump: “I think it’s been a tough time for him.”
He added: “This had nothing to do with collusion. It’s a collusion hoax. It’s a collusion witch hoax. I don’t collude with Russia.”
‘An Otherwise Blameless Life’
Franklin Foer takes issue with Paul Manafort’s lenient sentence and the judge’s assertion that the convict “has lived an otherwise blameless life.”
“In an otherwise blameless life, he helped the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos bolster his image in Washington after he assassinated his primary political opponent. In an otherwise blameless life, he worked to keep arms flowing to the Angolan generalissimo Jonas Savimbi, a monstrous leader bankrolled by the apartheid government in South Africa… In otherwise blameless life, he produced a public-relations campaign to convince Washington that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was acting within his democratic rights and duties when he imprisoned his most compelling rival for power. In an otherwise blameless life, he stood mute as Yanukovych’s police killed 130 protesters in the Maidan.”
“In an otherwise blameless life, he attempted to phone a potential witness in his trial, so that they could align their stories… In an otherwise blameless life, he acted with impunity, as if the laws never applied to him… And with Ellis’s featherweight punishment, Manafort managed to bring his life’s project to a strange completion. He had devoted his career to normalizing corruption in Washington. By the time he was caught, his extraordinary avarice had become so commonplace that not even a federal judge could blame him for it.”
Manafort Sentenced to 47 Months
“Paul Manafort, who once served as President Trump’s campaign chairman, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Thursday for cheating on his taxes and bank fraud — a spectacular fall for a once high-flying political consultant who told the judge he is now ‘humiliated and ashamed,'” the Washington Post reports.
“Manafort had faced up to 24 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis called that calculation ‘excessive’ and sentenced him instead to 47 months.”
It’s Sentencing Day for Paul Manafort
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort “is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday on tax and bank-fraud charges that could see the former Trump campaign chairman spend much of the rest of his life in prison,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Sentencing guidelines, which Judge Ellis isn’t required to follow, call for him to spend upward of 19 years in prison, and prosecutors said they agreed with those guidelines. Mr. Manafort’s attorneys, on the other hand, have cited other cases they view as comparable in which defendants received probation or less than one year behind bars.”
CNN: “Prosecutors say that Manafort, 69, deserves between 19 and 25 years in prison as well as millions of dollars in fines and restitution for the crimes, for which a jury convicted him after a three-week trial last summer. Manafort has shown little remorse, they say, and even lied under oath following a plea deal after the trial.”
Roger Stone Takes Down Two Websites
CNBC: “One, stonezone.com, was operating as of late Sunday, according to data from the internet archival service the Wayback Machine… The other site, whoframedrogerstone.com, was operating as of Feb. 6, according to the Wayback Machine.”
“Another Stone website, stonecoldtruth.com, remained online Tuesday, as does stonedefensefund.com. Both of those active sites contain links for visitors to donate to his legal defense, as does Stone’s active Facebook page. However, Stone has significantly changed the language on one of his remaining legal fundraising sites, apparently to comply with the gag order.”
Judge Warns Roger Stone Over His Forthcoming Book
“A federal judge warned Roger Stone, the flamboyant political operative under indictment as part of the Russia investigation, that his latest book could violate an order prohibiting him from talking about the case,” USA Today reports.
“She gave him until Monday to explain himself.”
Said U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson: “It does not matter when the defendant may have first formulated the opinions expressed, or when he first put them into words: he may no longer share his views on these particular subjects with the world.”
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