Manafort will receive a second sentence next week from a different federal judge for the two crimes he pleaded guilty to last year, witness tampering and conspiracy related to his illegal Ukrainian lobbying and money laundering. Prosecutors have looked to that second sentencing as a backstop to keep Manafort in prison, in case they feel Ellis was extremely lenient.
More to comeâŚ
BlamelessâŚgosh, let us count the ways.
âHe has lived an otherwise blameless life,â said Judge T.S. Ellis, as he sentenced Paul Manafort to just 47 months in prison on Thursday.
In an otherwise blameless life, Paul Manafort lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry and wangled millions in tax breaks for corporations.
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. While Manafort helped portray his client as an anti-communist âfreedom fighter,â Savimbiâs army planted millions of landmines in peasant fields, resulting in 15,000 amputees.
In an otherwise blameless life, Manafort was kicked out of the lobbying firm he co-founded, accused of inflating his expenses and cutting his partners out of deals.
In an otherwise blameless life, he spent a decade as the chief political adviser to a clique of former gangsters in Ukraine. This clique hoped to capture control of the state, so that it could enrich itself with government contracts and privatization agreements. This was a group closely allied with the Kremlin, and Manafort masterminded its rise to powerâthereby enabling Ukraineâs slide into Vladimir Putinâs orbit.
In otherwise blameless life, Manafort came to adopt the lifestyle and corrupt practices of his Ukrainian clients as his own.
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 Yanukovychâs police killed 130 protesters in the Maidan.
In an otherwise blameless life, he found himself nearly $20 million in debt to a Russian oligarch, Instead of honestly accounting for the money, he simply stopped responding to the oligarch messages.
In an otherwise blameless life, he tried to use his perch atop the Trump campaign to help salvage his sorry financial situation. He installed one of his proteges as the head of the pro-Trump super-PAC, Rebuilding America. His friend allegedly funnelled $125,000 from the super-PAC to pay off one of Manafortâs nagging debts.
In an otherwise blameless life, Manafort was found guilty of tax evasion on an industrial scale. Rather than paying his fair share to help fund national defense and public health, he kept his cash in Cyprus and wired it home to buy over $1 million in bespoke clothing.
In an otherwise blameless life, he disguised his income as loans, so that he could bamboozle banks into lending him money.
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 systematically lied to Robert Muellerâs prosecutors, after he promised them his full cooperation.
In an otherwise blameless life, he acted with impunity, as if the laws never applied to him. When presented with a chance to show remorse to the court, he couldnât find that sentiment within his being. And with Ellisâs featherweight punishment, which deviated sharply downward from the sentencing guidelines, Manafort managed to bring his lifeâs 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.
More 69 years of âundetected crimeâ.
Just as we head into the Ides of MarchâŚ
Buckle up: The next five days could reveal how the Mueller probe will play out.
Paul Manafort will know how long heâll be serving in prison, closing the book on special counsel Robert Muellerâs most visible legal fight. Roger Stone will know his trial date, putting a timeline on when the public will get more details about his alleged contacts with WikiLeaks. And status reports are due for two of Muellerâs biggest cooperators â Michael Flynn and Rick Gates â that will signal whether the special counsel has tapped them for all the information investigators need.
Read more below 
Itâs all one big counterintelligence investigation so the gang of eight will be informed regardless of the criminal report that goes to AG Barr. The daily beast explains below.
The most public and familiar one is as a criminal investigator under the special counsel regulations. But Mueller has also carried a second charge, as a counterintelligence expert, with a much broader charge to determine and report the scope of any interference and any links to the Trump campaignâwhat Trump himself might refer to as âcollusion.â
In March 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey testified that the Russia investigation was commenced âas part of our counterintelligence mission . . . also includ[ing] an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.â Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensteinâs May 17, 2017 order appointing Mueller special counsel specifically and carefully incorporated this announced scope and mission.
From the start, then, Mueller has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation, while âalsoâ assessing whether any crimes were committed. Not the other way around.
Comey and Rosenstein knew what they were doing. It is the mission of a criminal investigation to produce indictments and trials, which tell stories and render conclusions only imperfectly. Thanks to the special counsel regulations, there is also âa confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions.â But what will go into this report and what the Congress and public may ultimately see is highly proscribed.
It is the central mission of a counterintelligence investigation, however, to produce . . . well, a report. These findings and conclusions are shared with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and relevant agencies of the 17-member intelligence community (CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.). The report may be honed into a formal IC âassessmentâ reflecting the consensus view of the 17 agencies. It was just such a report, âAssessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,â that on Jan. 7, 2017 was shared with incoming President Trump. Its disclosure brought into public view the Intelligence Communityâs bombshell conclusion that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an effort to discredit Hillary Clinton and to âhelp President-elect Trumpâs election chances.â
Significantly, unlike a final criminal report, a Mueller counterintelligence report cannot be bottled up. By statute it must be shared with Congress. The House and Senate intelligence committees are legally entitled to be given reports, in writing, of significant intelligence and counterintelligence activities or failures. Muellerâs findings will certainly qualify.
Where matters are too delicate to share with all the members of the intelligence committees, statute and established practice provide that disclosure may be made to a smaller circle known as the âGang of Eight:â the chair and ranking member of each intelligence committee, and the Democratic and Republican leaders of each chamber.
Commentary
@Matt had commented in yesterdayâs newsfeed (day 781) -
Is it just me or has the news cycle been a little off lately? I feel like there hasnât been a lot âhard newsâ (i.e. things signed; actions taken), but rather a lot of news that is on the soft side
To me it feels like we are in a waiting room, off to the side, awaiting to hear about the patient, and letâs call it Patient X. When the Mueller Report drops, when the indictments fall, when more is presented as knowable truths of the corruption from the T administration (or not) we will have a much clearer state of the union.
There have been so many shoes dropped, awaiting the âdrop,â etc. We get all sorts of indications that many people have been doing some really unsavory/illegal/immoral AND corrupt things. Weâre waiting for an update from the authorities âdoctorsâ as to what bits are true, what kinds of evidence there is, and whoâs going down.
Suffice it to say the 37 indictments feel like there some THERE THERE.
We have THIS WEEK the hugely significant sentencing/reprimands/trials/status reports of Manafort,Stone, Gates/Flynn
Day 781
That said, while we wait, hereâs a diversionâŚOn the Mueller She Wrote (https://www.muellershewrote.com/) do a bit of speculating what may be up in terms of indictments on their podcastâŚand it is called the Fantasy Indictment League.
I am posting what their three leads are proposing may be in store next. It is not a real betâŚjust an educated guess, and @Keaton_James and others may be interested to see what/who they believe is going down next. (no money on this, just conjecture)
Hereâs the rules and their best bets
This is the official #MSWFIL post where you post your FIVE picks for the this week. Each week I will make a post for you to reply to with your five picks, and if during that week, anyone of your picks gets indicted (whether theyâre cooperating or not), you get points.
POINT STRUCTURE
20 points for a member of Trumps family or a Trump family business
10 points for congress members, SCOTUS NOMINEES, and current or former cabinet members
5 points for high level White House staff and inner circle staff, and businesses and entities
2 points for outer ring Americans
1 point for randos (random people weâve likely never heard of) and Russians.
New plea deals also count, as do criminal charges, indictments, and any of those that were referred to outside orgs by Mueller.
1 additional point for a plea agreement modifierThis is not gambling. No gambling.
A G - Iâll go first: my five for this week are Assange, Wikileaks, Kushner, AMI, and Dylan Howard.
Jordanâs are Prince, DTJ, Sater, superseding Stone, and Bannon plea deal.
Jaleesaâs are Weisselberg, Corsi plea deal, Kaiser, Trump Inaugural, and Trump Org.
So if you have any thoughts who may be going down SOON, letâs hear it.
I have not a clue, but I have a WISH list, which includes all of the above. 
Ok until then we wait (some more.)
Michael Flynnâs cooperation in Robert Muellerâs Russia investigation is complete, lawyers for the special counsel said in a Tuesday night report to a federal judge presiding over the former Trump national security adviserâs case.
In the same joint status report, Flynnâs lawyers asked for a 90-day delay in their clientâs sentencing so he could continue to cooperate with the government in his former business partnerâs upcoming trial in Alexandria, Va. Flynn expects to testify in the mid-July trial against Bijan Rafiekian, who faces charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign government agent for Turkey.
More soonâŚ
Paul Manafortâs prison sentence was upped to seven-and-a-half years on Wednesday morning, bringing an end to Robert Muellerâs most public legal battle and capping a spectacular fall for the globetrotting GOP consultant and former chairman of the Trump campaign.
The full sentence in Eastern District of Virginia is 60 months for the first count â 30 will be served concurrently â and 13 months of consecutive prison time on his second count, in addition to the 47-months Manafort was sentenced to in the D.C. District Court â our about 7.5 years. The break down is as follows:
Manafort sentencing NOW in the DC court. He is pleading. âsorry.â 
Hereâs the money shot (best quote)
Background:
Judge Berman Jackson sentences Manafort to 3 years concurrently with his other sentence, and an additional 43 months on top of that. Approximately 7.5 total years including the 4 years that he was sentenced to in VA.
ABJ - did take every bit of Manafortâs claims - he had gout, he was in solitary, he did not commit collusionâŚand straightened out the truth.
Gout - He never showed the ABJ any medical records on the gout.
Solitary -His solitary confinement included phones, internet and was an easy spot for Manafort to hang out, rather than be deprived.
No Collusion - She wanted to make sure Manafortâs lawyers could not spin this verdict to say there was âno collusionâ by saying the collusion question was not on trial here, and therefore does not mean it does not exist.
Manafort ordered to serve an additional 43 months in prison
Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered Paul Manafort to serve an additional 43 months in prison, on top of his sentence he received last week from the court in Virginia.
Oh shit!
Hereâs (slightly) more:
The NYT
Paul J. Manafort, President Trumpâs former campaign chairman, has been charged in New York with mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said Wednesday, an effort to ensure he will still face prison time if Mr. Trump pardons him for his federal crimes.
News of the indictment came shortly after Mr. Manafort was sentenced to his second federal prison term in two weeks; he now faces a combined sentence of more than seven years for tax and bank fraud and conspiracy in two related cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but has no such authority in state cases.
Manafort would go to Rikers island pre-trial? Lol
Fresh Manafort Indictment docs here
16 counts!
Things are winding downâŚAndrew Weissmann - lead prosecutor for Mueller is leaving.
He was the one that T hoped he would not be prosecuting him directly, since heâs a very sharp, aggressive prosecutor.
More to comeâŚ
The House vote this am showed a commitment to getting the Mueller Report to the public, however it is non-binding. More momentum though towards this makes it clear, they want the Mueller Report revealed.
WASHINGTON â House Republicans joined Democrats on Thursday to overwhelmingly demand the Department of Justice release to Congress and the public the full findings of the special counselâs investigation into Russiaâs interference in the 2016 election and the possible involvement of President Trumpâs campaign.
Though the resolution is nonbinding and cannot force the Justice Department to take a particular action, Democrats who put it on the House floor are trying to build public pressure on Attorney General William P. Barr in advance of the investigationâs anticipated conclusion to share what Robert S. Mueller III produces. Far from standing in the way, Republicans joined Democrats en masse. On the 420-0 vote, four Republicans voted present.
Roger Stone will go on trial starting Nov. 5 in Washington, the federal judge presiding over the high-profile case said Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson set out a calendar for a two-week trial that will pit the longtime Trump associate against special counsel Robert Mueller on charges Stone lied to Congress and obstructed lawmakersâ Russia investigations.