Manafort Attorney Heckled For Proclaiming ‘No Evidence’ of Russian Collusion: ‘Liar!’
Paul Manafort‘s attorney was challenged by protesters on Wednesday when he tried to falsely claim there was “no evidence of any Russian collusion” in his client’s case.
Kevin Downing gave a brief public statement after Manafort was sentenced to an additional 43 months in prison. Downing proclaimed that “two courts have ruled no evidence of any collusion,” but the crowd excoriated him with shouts of “liar!” and “that’s not what [the judge] said!”
Downing left after bashing Judge Amy Berman Jackson for being “incredibly hostile” and saying the sentence was “callous.”
Multiple reporters were present for Manafort’s hearing, so they heard that Jackson actually scolded the defense team for constantly railing against Robert Mueller throughout the proceeding.
“Any conspiracy, collusion was not presented in this case, therefore it was not resolved by this case,” Jackson said. In layman’s terms, this means that the second sentencing case wasn’t about Russian collusion, but that doesn’t prove anything either way about Manafort’s innocence on the issue.
Judge Jackson alludes to Manafort's apparent Trump pardon play by noting his recent argument about Mueller being the only impetus for him facing charges. "It was being repeated for some other audience. So I probably don’t need to say too much about it."
— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) March 13, 2019
Judge Jackson said "saying I'm sorry I got caught is not an inspiring plea for leniency," & concluded the defense argument that Paul Manafort would have evaded punishment if not for the special counsel "falls flat." She said the arg is being repeated "for some other audience."
— Carrie Johnson (@johnson_carrie) March 13, 2019
Judge TS Ellis, who presided over Manafort’s sentencing in Virginia, made a similar comment last week when he remarked that the case pertains to charges that did not involve collusion, therefore existing outside of Robert Mueller‘s investigation.
Watch above, via CNN.
— —
Comments
↓ Scroll down for comments ↓