Former Trump Campaign Chair Paul Manafort Ordered To Jail

Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort ordered to jail for witness tampering

A federal judge has ordered Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair to jail amid new charges he had attempted to tamper with government witnesses for his upcoming trial.

According to CNN's Marshall Cohen, prosecutors said Manafort used a method called "foldering" to covertly communicate people in an attempt to evade detection.

Manafort created an email account and shared the password with others. He would write messages then save them as drafts, never sending the actual emails. Other folks would open the draft, read it, and delete.

#shady

From The New York Times:

Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, had posted a $10 million bond and was under house arrest while awaiting his September trial on a host of charges, including money laundering and false statements.

But Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court for the District of Columbia said Mr. Manafort could not remain free, even under stricter conditions, in the face of new felony charges that he had engaged in witness tampering while out on bail. “This is not middle school,” she said during a 90-minute court hearing. “I can’t take away his cellphone.”

Mr. Trump, in a tweet on Friday, defended Mr. Manafort and criticized Judge Jackson’s action against him, though he seemed to misunderstand what the judge had done.

“Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!”

In a superseding indictment filed last week, the prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, claimed that Mr. Manafort and a close associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, had contacted two witnesses earlier this year, hoping to persuade them to testify that Mr. Manafort had never lobbied in the United States for Viktor F. Yanukovych, the pro-Russia president of Ukraine.

The Twitterverse reacts:

Manafort has not been sentenced. he has been jailed because the judge found reason to believe he was committing new crimes in hopes of concealing old crimes in upcoming trial https://t.co/5tpv7UP5cH

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 15, 2018

Manafort was not sentenced. The judge revoked Manafort's bail, sending him to jail before trial, because he allegedly committed more crimes while on house arrest. BUT while we're talking about sentencing, if Manafort is convicted on all counts in DC/VA, he faces 300+ years. https://t.co/LhVmGeMG3N

— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) June 15, 2018

Trump says pretrial detention is too harsh for Paul Manafort.

Trump has thousands of children separated from their moms and dads, held in internment camps because he has ordered pretrial detention for every asylum-seeker who arrives at the border.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 15, 2018

BREAKING: Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort has been jailed following new charges of witness tampering. He'll be held without bail until trial. pic.twitter.com/W51OHtIsTt

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 15, 2018