After an overnight delay, in which the special counsel’s office requested that it be allowed to file Paul Manafort’s sentencing guidelines under seal, those documents are now out—with redactions. And they’re a doozy. How much criminal activity was Paul Manafort involved in? This much:
Given the breadth of Manafort’s criminal activity, the government has not located a comparable case with the unique array of crimes and aggravating factors.
The special counsel’s office is literally saying that Manafort is so bad, they don’t know just how to sentence him. Except … harshly. Harshly.
The SCO decries Manafort’s criminal activity as “bold,” says it “presents many aggravating sentencing factors” while having “no warranted mitigating factors.” Any credit Manafort may have received for anything he told investigators, was more than offset by his lies and attempts to mislead. According to the document, Manafort committed a string of felonies, stretching back over a decade right up into 2018 including crimes “committed while under a spotlight due to his work as the campaign chairman.”
When the documents and attachments are totaled up, it comes to nearly 875 pages. So don’t expect any instant analysis of everything that’s in these sentencing documents, or for every implication of the statements to be instantly clear. What is immediately clear is that the document is intended to smash Paul Manafort. It argues that his crimes were so frequent, so intentional, and committed with such disdain for the law that he should serve his sentences sequentially, leaving him in jail for 46 years. Which is quite a lot for someone about to turn 70. And even then, it’s clear the SCO is aggravated that they can’t ask for more. This is a Britannica worth of criminal activity.
According to the prosecutors, Manafort lied to them, lied to his own attorneys, lied to his own accountants, lied to the IRS, liked to the NSA, lied to the FBI, lied to Congress, and lied in front of the Grand Jury. It’s all just exhausting.
But what’s mostly missing from the Manafort documents can be summed up in a word: Russia.
In general, the redactions appear to be mostly limited to the lengthy attachments, and most of them seem aimed at covering up the names of uncharged individuals who Manafort contacted, tried to contact, or lied to. Though, as Marcy Wheeler has already pointed out, Dana Rohrabacher's name appears en clair.
But, as much text as there is in these document, at first glance there’s very little about Manafort’s role as chairman of the Trump campaign, or his contacts with Russia. In fact, it seems that in several instances the special counsel office has gone out of its way to avoid making connections. There may be less about Manafort’s actions related to his interaction with Konstantin Kilimnik than already appeared in other documents, and nothing about any other outreach to Russia on behalf of the Trump campaign — or at least, nothing in what I’ve read so far.
This doesn’t mean that Robert Mueller doesn’t intend to bring any conspiracy charges. It could mean that Mueller is going to bring those charges later, perhaps at the same time he files his report. But … the easier read could be that that Mueller simply doesn’t feel he has enough to bring conspiracy charges and make them stick. Not even against Manafort.
It’s going to take days to unravel all that’s in these documents, but so far the reading indicates very bad for Manafort … but only for Manafort. There seems to be little here that implicates anyone other than Manafort with the exception of Rick Gates, who already made his deal with Mueller. Except, of course, this document would seem to be extremely condemning of a system that continually rewarded Manafort with fat contracts and high positions in the GOP while he was repeatedly and blatantly committed egregious crimes.
For those hoping that this document would reveal all about the Russia investigation … let’s hope it didn’t.