The big news last week was the rather weak sentence handed down to former Trump campaign chairman and ostrich suit aficionado, Paul Manafort. Federal guidelines recommend 19-24 years sentences for the kind of crimes Manafort committed. But T.S. Ellis, a right wing conservative judge seated during the Reagan administration, took pity on Manafort and gave him an ostrich feather light 47 months or one month shy of 4 years. Only 4 years! Talk about your privilege for white plutocrats.
Needless to say, there is some uproar about the lenient sentence with many stating that people who’ve committed far less offensive crimes have gotten far stiffer sentences. But the bitter pill to swallow in all this is that other than his tax crimes, Ellis stated that Manafort lived an ‘otherwise blameless life’. Blameless! Are you freaking kidding!!! This man rubbed elbows with brutal dictators and deflected criticism of their regimes thus amassing millions of dollars. Even Manafort’s daughter said he has no moral compass. There is nothing blameless about him. He and Donald Trump are the epitome of the worst of American greed and the capitalistic lust for power, money and material possessions.
Manafort is up for sentencing this week for his other charges linked to conspiracy and illegal lobbying related to the Mueller investigation. Hopefully, the judge, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, will throw the book at this greedy piece of dung and let him rot the rest of his ‘blameless’ life in jail.
United States District Court Judge T.S. Ellis boldly mollycoddles blameless fraudster and ostrich suit aficionado Paul Manafort by finally giving a poor, white plutocrat some justice.
