Federal Judge T.S. Ellis III defied Robert Mueller’s “excessive” sentencing recommendation on Thursday and gave Paul Manafort only about a fifth of the prison time the special counsel wanted to see the former Trump campaign chairman serve.
Though Mueller has been tasked with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential “collusion” with the Trump campaign, Manafort’s charges have nothing to do with Russia or the campaign; rather they are a series of financial crimes, including “defrauding banks and the government, and failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars in income he earned from Ukrainian political consulting,” CNN reports.
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