WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort’s legal team detailed the former Trump campaign chairman’s work for four presidents, his ailing health, and the support he provided his extended family in a filing late Monday, asking a District of Columbia federal judge for leniency.
“Mr. Manafort is not the ‘brazen’ criminal that the Special Counsel paints him to be,” the attorneys wrote, responding to a request from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office that sought a stiff punishment for the longtime political adviser.
Manafort was convicted in Virginia last year of tax and bank fraud, and pleaded guilty in Washington, D.C., soon after to conspiracy in connection with failing to properly report his political consulting work in Ukraine in the early 2010s.
In a pair of filings over the past two weeks, Mueller’s team have described Manafort as a “bold” criminal who “acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law.” They endorsed a sentence of more than 19 years in prison for the 69-year-old’s tax and bank fraud, and left open the possibility of seeking additional time for the Washington crimes. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month by both judges in Virginia and Washington.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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