Paul Manafort Seemed Headed to Rikers. Then the Justice Department Intervened

[dajoki]

Paul Manafort Seemed Headed to Rikers. Then the Justice Department Intervened.
The decision came after Attorney General William Barr’s top deputy sent a letter to state prosecutors. Mr. Manafort will now be held in a federal lockup while he faces state charges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/nyregion/manafort-rikers.html

Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, had been expected to be transferred to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex this month to await trial on a separate state case.

But last week, Manhattan prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country inquiring about Mr. Manafort’s case. The letter, from Jeffrey A. Rosen, Attorney General William P. Barr’s new top deputy, indicated that he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York.

And then, on Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers.

Instead, he will await his trial at a federal lockup in Manhattan or at the Pennsylvania federal prison where he is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for wide-ranging financial schemes, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

A senior Justice Department official said that the department believed Mr. Manafort’s treatment was appropriate, but several former and current prosecutors said the decision was highly unusual. Most federal inmates facing state charges are held on Rikers Island.

The intervention of Mr. Rosen was just the latest twist in the case of Mr. Manafort, whose campaign work for Mr. Trump and political consulting in Ukraine put him in the cross hairs of a two-year investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election.

<<snip>>

The former Justice Department officials and current state prosecutors, who regularly handled the transfer of federal inmates to state custody, said they were surprised that the second-highest official in the Justice Department would take an interest in the case. The decision is usually made by the warden at the prison where the inmate is being held.

Justice Department officials were unable to say who made the decision in Mr. Manafort’s case; the Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department, did not respond to a request for comment.

<<snip>>

[marble falls]

1. They're trying to make him think there's a pardon in the pipeline.

[walkingman]

2. Just another case of "these people" have a different set of rules from ordinary people. Welcome

to Amerika.

[Botany]

3. "Most federal inmates facing state charges are held on Rikers Island."

State charges so Manafort should be in a state facility. End of story.

We need to win back all three branches and see this group of unAmerican driven
from power and in jail where they belong. This is Barr's doing in trying to send
Manafort a massage to stay strong and Trump will pardon him.

BTW Trump can't pardon people for state crimes.

*******

Manafort sold out America

WASHINGTON — As a top official in President Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort shared political polling data with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday. The document provided the clearest evidence to date that the Trump campaign may have tried to coordinate with Russians during the 2016 presidential race.

Mr. Manafort’s lawyers made the disclosure by accident, through a formatting error in a document filed to respond to charges that he had lied to prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after agreeing to cooperate with their investigation into Russian interference in the election.

The document also revealed that during the campaign, Mr. Manafort and his Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, discussed a plan for peace in Ukraine. Throughout the campaign and the early days of the Trump administration, Russia and its allies were pushing various plans for Ukraine in the hope of gaining relief from American-led sanctions imposed after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

Prosecutors and the news media have already documented a string of encounters between Russian operatives and Trump campaign associates dating from the early months of Mr. Trump’s bid for the presidency, including the now-famous meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The accidental disclosure appeared to some experts to be perhaps most damning of all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/politics/manafort-trump-campaign-data-kilimnik.html

[lunasun]

4. Maybe next the JD will decided he should serve out his sentence at a trump hotel

More election consequences

[jmowreader]

5. As long as he stays in prison, I don't really care where he is

It would have been fun to see him sent to Rikers, though.

[dajoki]

6. But why is the top levels of the DOJ stepping in? n/t

[jmowreader]

7. My opinion: to keep him from getting killed

Manafort's New York indictments revolve around mortgage fraud. I figure Manafort gets his money from the same kinds of people Trump goes to, and those are the wrong people to rip off.

Neither Manafort nor Trump will ever see the inside of a New York state prison. Too many people who have contact with Sing Sing inmates want them dead.

[maxsolomon]

8. Hang in their Paul

the pardon's coming!