Paul Manafort got lucky yesterday. Judge T.S. Ellis sentenced him to four years less a month in jail. Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 19 to 24 years. But Ellis concluded that Manafort had led, "an otherwise blameless life."
Manafort's record suggests otherwise. Matt Stieb writes:
Far worse than those criminal actions are his career highlights that were legal — or, at least weren’t under the scope of federal prosecutors. After setting up a lobbying shop with Roger Stone and Charles Black Jr., Manafort took his talents abroad, where he spent decades vouching for authoritarians in exchange for astonishing amounts of money. In 1985, Manafort signed a $600,000 contract with Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in exchange for boosting his reputation on the hill as an anti-communist; it worked, and Congress sent millions in covert aid to Savimbi.
According to an astonishing report by the Atlantic’s Franklin Foer, it worked so well that the money Manafort routed to Savimbi allegedly emboldened the rebel leader to extend the Angolan Civil War, resulting in hundreds of thousands of additional deaths. In the late 20th century, Manafort was something akin to the lobbying-for-authoritarians edition of Forrest Gump, popping up around the globe wherever an autocratic leader needed a patina of legitimacy. He worked for the Saudis; for Ferdinand Marcos, who assassinated his primary opponent, in the Philippines; for Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire; and was indirectly involved in the Contra-like Karachi affair. The Center for Public Integrity tidily summed up his efforts in 1992, calling Manafort’s firm the “torturer’s lobby.”
But it all comes down to the facts of the case against Manafort -- and the context in which those facts are presented. In the United States, there are two kinds of justice -- justice for the well connected and justice for nobodies:
Class and race work together in the prosecutor’s office, judge’s chambers, and juror’s box, providing something close to a systemic guarantee: A poor person, or person of color — or one of the millions of Americans to which both identities apply — will not face the same criminal justice system that men like Paul Manafort experience. But the criminalization of poverty and criminalization of race aren’t the only embarrassing divides on display here. The stigmatization of poverty and race also ensure that [certain clients] would not receive the amiable treatment that Manafort enjoyed.
Next week, Manafort faces another judge in D.C. It will be interesting to see the context in which she operates.
Image: New York Magazine
