Paul Manafort Getting The VIP Treatment In Virginia Jail
Apparently, having worked for the president really does have its perks as Paul Manafort, the one-time head of President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has been given “VIP” quarters in his new digs — a federal prison in Virginia, according to the New York Post. The man who traveled the world is now being housed at the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia, which is about 90 miles south of Washington, D.C.
After Manafort allegedly tried to contact witnesses in his upcoming trial for conspiracy and money laundering, a judge revoked Manafort’s bail Friday. When Manafort arrived for court that day, the crowd bellowed out a familiar phrase heard at Trump rallies but with a slight change — “Lock him up!” As CNN reported, Special Counsel Robert Mueller lodged these new charges of witness tampering against Manafort. This comes after he was already facing the possibility of decades behind bars on charges of financial fraud.
Manafort was originally freed on a $10 million bail after he pled not guilty last October. Manafort had been placed under house arrest, per the judge’s orders, and his passport was confiscated, CNN reported. But last week, the special counsel presented evidence that showed Manafort had tried to contact witnesses in his case, asking them to lie about the lobbying they had done under him.
Great shot of Manafort arriving to courthouse this morning. (Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS) pic.twitter.com/lNxK7x7fHh
— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) June 15, 2018
The former campaign manager’s lawyers had opposed Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s decision, asking if there was a less restrictive measure she could take against Manafort and saying the instructions were not clear enough about which witnesses Manafort could not contact, as reported previously by the Inquisitr. Jackson didn’t buy that line of argument, MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin noted.
As Paul Manafort sits in jail, many legal experts predict that he will be far more inclined to work with investigators and against President Donald Trump. As the Guardian reported earlier this year, there has been increasing pressure on Manafort after his former business associate, Rick Gates, flipped and began cooperating with investigators. Many have surmised the recent pardons that have been issued by the president for people like Scooter Libby were allegedly a sign to his former close associates like Manafort and lawyer Michael Cohen, who have been targets of the Mueller probe, that they should hang in there and perhaps not cooperate. Of course, this is just speculation but as Manafort spends more and more time in his “VIP” prison cell, things may start to look direr for those on the outside too.
