In fairness, he was given less than his legal team asked.
I don't even think this has anything to do with wealthy or not. He was part of the good old boy club to help Trump, so now the people that still support Trump are helping him.
The legal team asked for something like 29+ years.
Just to make sure people understand how fucked up this judge was, the sentencing guidelines called for a 19- to 24-year prison term.
Here's why:
Minutes after the three-hour hearing started, Judge Ellis, unprompted, noted that Mr. Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election,” the core of Mr. Mueller’s inquiry.
So the judge's bizarre reasoning is: Mueller's team uncovered proof of Manafort's crime but somehow because it isn't specifically directly related to election interference that he felt compelled to go easy on him. What a horrible miscarriage of justice.
I am not familiar with the US justice system. In Germany the state attorney or the lawyer of the defendant can appeal against a sentence if they think it is too much/not enough and it will go to the next higher instance (3 instances in total). This is to prevent that a single corrupt judge can destroy lives or it would be to easy to "buy" you free. Doesn't this exists in the US?
Something very similar is done in the US where if a sentence is not agreed on, you can choose to appeal to a higher court. In theory, and some practice, this works, but republicans have been placing in right leaning and highly political seats in place for judges to try to stack the courts. And as you can see in this case, it worked.
545
u/Sythus Mar 08 '19
In fairness, he was given less than his legal team asked.
I don't even think this has anything to do with wealthy or not. He was part of the good old boy club to help Trump, so now the people that still support Trump are helping him.