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Manafort Sentenced to Only 47 Months in Prison; House Passes Resolution Condemning Anti-Semitism & Other Bigotry. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 08, 2019 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His sentence was unjust and unreasonable and unprincipled.

[00:59:44] KEVIN DOWNING, PAUL MANAFORT'S LAWYER: There is absolutely no evidence Manafort was involved with any collusion.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: The judge has demonstrated some hostility before now to Mueller. There's going to be another reckoning for Manafort.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This is an opportunity to declare opposition to anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim statements.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), NEW YORK: I wish we had had a separate resolution about anti-Semitism.

REP. TED DEUTCH (D), FLORIDA: For the second time I am debating a resolution that all of us should have learned in kindergarten. Be nice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday. Happy Friday.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happy Friday.

CAMEROTA: March 8, 6 a.m. here in New York. We begin with breaking news for you.

President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, sentenced to 47 months in prison for tax evasion and bank fraud. That is well below the 19- to 24-year sentencing guidelines called for in Virginia.

Manafort was convicted last summer by a Virginia jury of not paying taxes on millions of dollars of income from his Ukrainian political consulting and lying to two banks to get loans for his lavish lifestyle.

Democratic lawmakers are blasting Manafort's sentence as being inadequate and an example of the disparities between street crimes and white-collar crimes.

BERMAN: So Manafort did not express regret to the court. His attorney emphasized, as did the judge, that this sentence was not for any collusion with Russia.

Democrats, including House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff watched the proceedings yesterday and called them, quote, "a deliberate appeal for a pardon."

Now, it's 6:01 a.m. We are waiting to hear how President Trump feels about this. He has been uncharacteristically silent this morning. It's unlikely that that will last.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is live in Washington with the very latest -- Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jessica.

The sentencing process, it took just about three hours, but many are criticizing the sentence itself for falling far short of what was expected. The judge sentenced Paul Manafort to just under four years in prison.

Now, it is the longest sentence to date stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. But since prosecutors were pushing for up to 25 years, critics are slamming this sentence as too lenient, while the president, of course, has so far remained silent.

President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, sentenced to nearly four years in prison for tax and bank fraud. Far less than the sentencing recommendation of 19 to 24 years. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Reagan appointee, calling those guidelines excessive but stressing that Manafort's crimes were clear and undeniably serious. A number of Democrats criticizing the sentence as excessively lenient.

BLUMENTHAL: This sentence, in my view, failed to do justice to the very serious crimes that Manafort has committed, as well as his utter disrespect for the law.

SCHNEIDER: Prior to his sentencing, Manafort seated in a wheelchair, asking the judge for compassion, remarking, "The last two years have been the most difficult of my life. To say that I feel humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement."

But Manafort did not express any regret for his crimes, something Judge Ellis later said surprised him but did not impact Manafort's sentence.

DOWNING: He made clear he accepts responsibility for his conduct.

SCHNEIDER: Manafort's lawyer echoing one of President Trump's main talking points after the sentencing.

DOWNING: There is absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved with any collusion with any government official from Russia.

SCHNEIDER: The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, criticizing the remark as a deliberate appeal for a pardon. Prior to Manafort's sentencing, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway telling reporters she had not discussed a pardon with the president and has not heard him role one out.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: It did seem that what the sentence may be was much more than perhaps other people get for bigger crimes.

SCHNEIDER: President Trump has expressed sympathy for Manafort, saying this when asked about a possible pardon last November.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The question was asked of me by "The New York Post," and I said, "No, I have not offered any pardons." And I think they asked for whatever, "Would you?" I said I'm not taking anything off the table.

SCHNEIDER: President Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, telling the Associated Press, "I feel terrible about the way Manafort has been treated. He's not a terrorist. He's not an organized criminal. He's a white-collar criminal. The man was treated this way because he wouldn't lie."

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SCHNEIDER: Now, as part of this nearly four-year sentence, Manafort will receive credit for the nine months he's already served in solitary confinement.

He will also have it pay up to $25 million in restitution to the government and, of course, he'll get that second sentence next week from a Washington, D.C., judge for the two crimes that he's pleaded guilty to.

That judge has been tough on Manafort. So that sentence could, in fact, be more substantial; and it could be stacked on top of Manafort's Virginia sentence -- John and Alisyn.

BERMAN: Up to ten more years is possible. I mean, that would be the outside limit that we could hear from next week, but up to ten more years in prison is possible.

All right, Jessica, thank you.

I want to bring in David Gregory, CNN political analyst; Carrie Cordero, CNN legal analyst and former counsel to the U.S. assistant general; and Laura Coates, a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.

[06:05:04] Laura, let's just start with you. Forty-seven months. Forty-seven months is not nothing. I mean, prison is not easy. Forty-seven months is not nothing. But so far below the federal guidelines. Your reaction?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Oh, you know, oh, to be a white- collar crime defendant in America. You saw here something that's 15 years below the actual minimum sentence. And the judge could have always varied from that.

But the notion to say that, because he had a reputation that was good in the community, and he had an otherwise blameless life really does belie the way that the justice system in America treats, in a very different way, those who have a certain collar and those who are committed -- of street-level crimes.

This, of course, is not nothing. He could have more sentencing later on next week. But the notion that a jury, a jury found somebody guilty of eight out of 18 and did not acquit on the remaining ten; and he committed crimes after he was already indicted for the original crimes; and he continued to lie; and he tampered with witnesses when he was actually waiting for a trial; and of course, the fact that it was a jury who did this, it really smacks in the face of why jurors are very skeptical about the justice system in America. And this points it out.

But I do not think that his failure to express remorse was because he somehow was trying to appeal to the judge. He was trying to appeal to the audience of one, because he's been praised by the president for never backing down, for being strong, to being the antithesis and what he's called the weak rat that is Michael Cohen. He was trying to say, "I'm never going to bend, and please, please, pat me on the back for the pardon for that."

CAMEROTA: But Carrie, on the flip side, in terms of his sentencing. I mean, the average sentence for rape in this country is 11 years. The sentence for murder is 15 years to life. So it wasn't 25 years; the possibility that Paul Manafort was going to get 14 to 25 years, couldn't that have been seen as overkill?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think there's two different issues here. So one is a broader question about the legal system and the justice system involving the sentencing guidelines.

There's many individuals in the legal and advocacy community who think that the sentencing guidelines, whether they pertain, particularly to violent crime or to drug offenses or other criminal offenses, should be changed; or perhaps there's some who even think that, in these types of crime, financial crime or white-collar crime, the sentencing guidelines are too rough or too harsh.

That's different than the judge in this case departing from the sentencing guidelines in this particular case.

And so I think one of the questions that I'll be interested to learn more about is what Judge Ellis's practice is with respect to departing so far downward on these types of similar crimes.

But the judge indicated throughout the trial, really, that he was sympathetic to Paul Manafort. And I think he felt that Paul Manafort would have never been charged with these crimes at all -- tax evasion, fraud -- had he not been connected to the Trump campaign and the overall Russia investigation that got started. And he seemed pretty taken with the fact that, after that investigation, Paul Manafort, in his district, was not charged with anything related to that overall Russia-related investigation.

BERMAN: Hang on, David, just one second. I just want to get -- there is one answer to a question that Carrie raised here. Which is Judge T.S. Ellis of late -- and by that, I mean the last few years -- actually does have a record of coming out against mandatory minimum sentences, which is different than guidelines.

But he has felt of late, the last few years, that some of the sentencing structure in place in the country is too strict. That's specifically for drug sentences and stacking, which is a different issue. So you could read into that that he thinks sentencing overall is a problem here. That may be a partial answer to your first question.

David, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, no, no. I've seen Judge Ellis in action, as well, in a trial that I observed and, you know, he's also an incredibly independent thinker, as all judges are who are part of the judiciary going to make their own calls here and they have the ability to do so.

I mean, I think the criticism that Laura articulates is exactly right. But I think Carrie's point is really important, as well. And I think what's clear in this case is that Judge Ellis made it abundantly clear from the start he thought the government was overreaching here. And I think that does play a role in how judges get reputations as sentencers. And you're seeing that in this case.

And so from beyond the questions of the sentence itself, there's very little doubt that President Trump will seize upon this and say, "Aha, you know, there's no evidence of collusion here. And he was a tough guy. And the government went so hard at him because they were trying to squeeze him, and what did they get? In the end they got nothing that, you know, wasn't already known."

Although the problem for Manafort, of course, is lying about his contacts with a Russian oligarch.

[06:10:05] So the reality is this is not a witch-hunt. These are real crimes. He was charged with them. He was investigated. He ultimately did want to cooperate and did cooperate with the government.

But I think this comes down to a judge who looked at the case and thought the government was pushing too hard in another direction and found what they could charge here.

BERMAN: From the beginning, he felt that way, too. If you watched and read the transcripts of this trial, he never liked this case. CAMEROTA: But Laura, to your point, the difference between street

crime and white-collar crime is really notable. Senator Elizabeth Warren seized on this. She put out a tweet that's really interesting. And I think this has sparked an interesting conversation.

Trump -- "Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort commits bank and tax fraud and gets 47 months. A homeless man, Fate Winslow, helped sell $20 worth of pot and got life in prison. The words above the Supreme Court say, 'Equal Justice Under the Law.' When will we start acting like it?"

That's an injustice, but it's an injustice to Fate Winslow. I mean, this shows that street crime is, you know, apparently massively over- sentenced; and it's just very interesting to look at the juxtaposition today.

COATES: Well, the reasoning for many of that is obviously the sociology and the history of America and the issues of race in the war on drugs.

The -- the actual judge himself just last year sentenced a man who was a nonviolent, first-time offender. I think he was, like, 27 or 37 years old, to 40 years in prison for selling methamphetamine. So you know this -- and that was according to the guidelines, of course. And he did, as he said, chafe about that but did it nonetheless. This is an issue overall.

But I want to point out one thing. When the judge talks about the notion of this being overreach. I think to the extent that the judge took into consideration the fact that this was not about collusion and under the mandate that he believed that Mueller was operating, he is wrong. Because overreaching with respect to whether or not this relates to Russia is very different than whether the prosecutors overreached in actually indicting and prosecuting a crime.

They didn't simply make one up, because there was a failure to have one about Russia. The grand jury didn't feel so, and the actual trial jurors didn't think so.

But you are right. From the very beginning, the judge seized upon this possibly as early as last May, deciding whether or not this was, in fact, Mueller's attempt to try to hone him in on the Russia scandal. But we're beyond that.

He was allowed, Mueller, to look at the things that he would come across in the course of investigating Russian collusion. And this was one of them. He was fairly prosecuted. The jury fairly convicted him based on the evidence and did not convict on all. And for the judge not to take that into consideration, to me, is a failure.

BERMAN: Two points to make here. The judge also said that Manafort's led an otherwise blameless life. There are a lot of people taking issue with that this morning. There's some articles worth reading here based on who he's worked for.

Again, he wasn't prosecuted for those or charged for crimes with those, but "blameless" is an interesting word.

And I just want to briefly read Rudy Giuliani's statement one more time. On that point, he goes, "I feel terrible about the way Manafort has been treated. He's not a terrorist. He's not an organized criminal. He's a white-collar criminal. The man was treated this way, because he wouldn't lie."

Carrie, he did lie. He lied to a grand jury. He lied to federal prosecutors. And he's in trouble for that with the other federal judge who will sentence him in just a few days.

CORDERO: And he didn't express remorse, really, in his statement yesterday. He didn't really express regret for his crimes.

It's important that we keep the two cases separate in our minds. The Virginia case, he was charged with tax fraud and bank fraud; and he was convicted, as Laura said, by a jury. He didn't start cooperating with the government and he did not plead to any guilty plea until he got to the D.C. case that's before Judge Jackson for her sentencing next week.

And then he did not even fulfill his cooperation. The prosecutor said that, in the district case, he continued to lie to him. So the Virginia case, he was convicted by a jury; and he did not express regret or remorse for those actions.

CAMEROTA: David, we owe you one in the next segment. Thank you all very much.

BERMAN: All right. The House passed a broad resolution condemning hate after a week of bitter infighting among Democrats. Does this help or hurt their attempts to unify? And who votes "no" on a resolution that says hate is bad?

CAMEROTA: Twenty-three people?

BERMAN: Yes, interesting. All right, that's next.

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[06:18:58] BERMAN: All right. The House of Representatives overwhelming passed a broad resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, practically all other forms of bigotry.

This comes after the freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar, controversial comments, her controversial comments about Israel and support for Israel and those comments that caused such turmoil inside the Democratic Party.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is live on Capitol Hill with a recap of what went down here -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, a debate over bigotry and anti-Semitism really dominating the discussion this week on Capitol Hill, also revealing some real deep divisions within the Democratic Party and also offering a real first test to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership over the freshmen Democrats.

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MALVEAUX (voice-over): House Democrats passing a resolution broadly condemning hate and bigotry, capping a week of bitter infighting over how to respond to a string of comments culminating in this remark from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that has been criticized as anti-Semitic.

[06:20:03] REP. ILHAN OMAR (D), MINNESOTA: I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.

MALVEAUX: The resolution was originally drafted to specifically condemn anti-Semitism but was later revised to include a denunciation of various types of bigotry, including white supremacy and anti-Muslim bias.

PELOSI: It's not about her. It's about these forms of hatred.

MALVEAUX: Omar voting in favor the resolution, releasing a joint statement with two of her Muslim colleagues, noting, "Our nation is having a difficult conversation, and we believe this is great progress."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stopping short of calling for an apology from Congresswoman Omar but stressing that she may still need to explain her remark.

PELOSI: I don't believe it was intended in any anti-Semitic way. But the fact is, if that's how it was interpreted, we have to remove all doubt, as we have done over and over again.

MALVEAUX: All House Democrats voted in favor of the measure, but the divisions the controversy exposed within the party were still on display.

ENGEL: The words spoken by our colleague from Minnesota last week touched a very real, very raw place for me.

DEUTCH: Why are we unable to singularly condemn anti-Semitism? Why can't we call it anti-Semitism and show that we've learned the lessons of history?

MALVEAUX: Ultimately, 23 Republicans voted against the measure in protest of the measure's failure to singularly address anti-Semitism.

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R), TEXAS: Hatred for the children of Israel is a very special kind of hatred that should never be watered down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: And several Democratic lawmakers really took issue with Republicans, rejecting the measure in their concern that this was too broad. At the same time, Democrats acknowledging now that there's a real debate going forward over U.S./Israeli policy -- John, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Suzanne, thank you very much.

We're back now with David Gregory. We're also joined by Margaret Talev, senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg News; Toluse Olorunnipu [SIC] -- Olorunnipa, White House correspondent for "The Washington Post"; and John Avlon, CNN senior political analyst.

David, should they -- you know, you just heard the debate that they didn't singularly condemn anti-Semitism. That's what sparked the whole debate. They went for the broad antibigotry. Your thoughts?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And lot of that is because of the hateful bigotry that's been directed at Congresswoman Omar since -- and not just since these comments, but since she's been in Congress, which absolutely should be condemned.

Watching the Democrats on this has been, you know, watching a very tortured process of dealing with a generational split within the caucus over bigotry, over questions about Israel, about criticism of Israel.

But at the end of the day, they kind of dodged the issue here. Congresswoman Omar trafficked in classic, historical anti-Semitism. There's no question about it. They're not controversial remarks. They're anti-Semitic remarks. She's done it twice. She apologized the first time. She didn't do it this time.

And what's ironic about all of this is that she's got a platform, she gets a lot of attention, as do other new members of Congress. And she's only showing ignorance on this topic.

If she wants to have a player, if she wants to have real impact on the question of Israeli relations with the United States, then she could do it in a straight-up, informed way. She hasn't done that.

There's a long list of ways to criticize Israel, to criticize AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States. Lots of people do it. But they don't resort to anti-Semitism to do it. So she just undercuts.

So for her to say, we're having a serious debate in this country, we're not having a serious debate in this country. We're having a reaction to anti-Semitic remarks that capture her view as kind of an activist opponent of Israel and now as a member of Congress, where she's not having the kind of impact I think she would like to have and could have.

BERMAN: And Margaret, David is absolutely right. The Democrats here, it was so tortured the last few days.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It certainly was. And I think what you see going on is two things.

There's political divisions inside the Democratic caucus that are generational among sort of other trends. But it also reflects that, in the general public, there is a generational divide in terms of the public, in terms of rising voting powers and the political realm heading into 2020.

And this is something that Republicans, obviously, are going to try to exploit in terms of driving a wedge inside the Democratic vote and inside of fundraising.

And I spoke with the Republican Jewish Coalition yesterday, checked in on this issue, and they said, "Yes, thousands of our members are calling Nancy Pelosi and Engel's office," and that, in fact, it had become part of their fundraising script for donors in terms of their own advocacy.

[06:25:08] So I think Republicans have seized on a real -- a real division and are looking to -- looking to take advantage of it.

CAMEROTA: But Toluse, do Republicans have the moral high ground here? I mean, the idea that they're calling Congresswoman Omar's comments offensive, they cannot be tolerated.

You know, let's just rewind the tape to Charlottesville. They are so much more outraged about what she said than what happened in Charlottesville, what the president said in Charlottesville. I mean, it's just -- it's stunning, I think, that they're trying to take the moral high ground after all that.

I mean, they keep, as you know, Toluse, they bring up Steve King: "We censured Steve King. We stripped him of his committee memberships," after ten years. Democrats criticized Congresswoman Omar after ten minutes.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: President Trump is the leader of the party; and a lot of these Republicans have found it very difficult to condemn him when he makes remarks that are seen as bigoted or when he fails to denounce white supremacy, as he did during the Charlottesville episode.

So there's no clean hands here. Republicans, obviously, are very reluctant to cross the president, even when he does things that are even more explicit than what the Democrats are being charged with here.

And I think, you know, the fact that you had 23 Republicans voting against this -- this resolution is something that can be used against them.

We have a Republican Party that -- it's largely, overwhelmingly male and has very few minorities and for them to vote against the idea of condemning bigotry is something that Democrats are going to try to use against them.

AVLON: Sure. Look, part of what this is about is the cycle of negative partisanship that we're in as a country. The only thing -- glue holding together the coalitions, to some extent, is demonizing the extremes on the other side.

And that interplay becomes very important, because extremes are always their own side's worst enemy. And the torturous debate within the Democratic Party, it shouldn't be difficult to condemn anti-Semitism. It should not. It is also good to condemn, for example, anti-Muslim bigotry, which Representative Omar has been a part of.

But what Democrats did, they put together sort of a quilt of different aggrieved groups to try to find consensus, and they chose the "all lives matter" versus "black lives matter" argument for this bill when that's something that many of this them have been resisting very much, calling out the specific problems facing the African-American community in that broader movement.

So these are the fault lines of identity politics being faced. It's a problem in the Democratic Party. Republicans have done themselves no favors. Louie Gohmert and -- and, you know, Paul Gosar aren't going to be real poster children for fighting broad kinds of bigotry in American politics. But this is the way the interplay between the extremes works.

BERMAN: It was also a member of leadership, Liz Cheney, voted no on this.

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: And Peter King, you know, who has been chairman --

GREGORY: Can I just say --

BERMAN: -- in the committees, too. Go ahead, David.

GREGORY: Can I just say, this is why, you know, we shouldn't be looking to Congress or Twitter to have a constructive conversation about issues like this that are hard. Because they're singularly incapable of having real conversations.

We have can have a much better conversation here about these issues. The reality is that this is a big issue for Democrats. The relationship between the United States and Israel, the reality of Israel today is very divisive among progressive Jews in America. It's very divisive among progressives generally in America.

Republicans are trying to exploit that division, because most Jews vote for Democrats and not for Republicans. The Israeli government itself is trying to exploit those political divisions among Jews in America, which is really counterproductive.

And activist congressmen and women who oppose Zionism, who oppose Israel, who want to see a Palestinian state -- and there's lots of people, not just them who want to see a Palestinian state alongside the Israelis' nation -- you know, all of that is going to be a continuing debate about, you know, where are the boundaries and what's a fair, open-minded way of debating these things? And we're not having any of that right now.

BERMAN: No. Thomas Friedman wrote a column yesterday.

GREGORY: Which was very good, I thought. BERMAN: It is so worth reading for everybody, because he outlies the

discussion, he explains what Omar said in historical context and explains her positions over the last six months in other areas. And also talks, you know, Friedman ends the column by saying, you know, "I love Israelis. I love Palestinians. What I hate is the Americans who end up talking about both the Israelis and the Palestinians."

GREGORY: Right.

BERMAN: And how they do it because that's where it all gets mucked up.

I mean, Margaret, David's right here. Israel's got a big election coming up in a month, too. And U.S. policy toward Israel is a very important subject, and the way you discuss it is also important.

TALEV: Well, that's certainly right. And I think that's what's helped President Trump to move beyond these debates politically, at least, you know, inside his own party about Charlottesville or what have you is that his position on Israel has been so rocky (ph).

END