Trump news: President says 'I feel very bad' for Paul Manafort and launches emergency order to ground Boeing 737 MAX
The latest updates from Washington amid Paul Manafort's second sentencing hearing
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump denounced the “Witch Hunt Hoax” against him in a flurry of tweets on Wednesday, saying potential impeachment proceedings overlook “the minor fact I never did anything wrong” on the day his ex-campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was sentenced in a second federal hearing to 73 additional months in prison.
The president tweeted thanks to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her opposition to impeachment, which she considers “too divisive”, and took aim at New York’s state’s governor Andrew Cuomo, new attorney-general Letitia James and her predecessor, Eric Schneiderman for issuing subpoenas related to his business dealings.
Manafort was last week given 47 months in jail by a court in Virginia after pleading guilty to bank and tax fraud and this time faces up to 10 years behind bars for conspiracy against the US and obstruction of justice.
On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced Manafort to more than three and a half additional years in prison. That’s on top of the roughly four-year sentence he received in a separate case in Virginia last week.
The sentence followed a scathing assessment by the judge and a prosecutor of Manafort’s crimes. After Manafort was sentenced in federal court Wednesday, an indictment was unsealed in New York charging him with state crimes, including a residential mortgage fraud scheme.
Mr Trump said he feels “very badly” for his former campaign chairman following the sentencing.
“On a human basis, it’s a very sad thing," the president said.
Mr Trump also insisted he’s not currently considering a Manafort pardon, saying, “I have not even given it a thought as of this moment.”
The Manafort news arrived as Mr Trump was forced to announce an emergency order grounding a fleet of Boeing planes after a 737 MAX 8 plane was once again involved in a deadly crash.
Additional reporting by AP. Read The Independent's live coverage from Wednesday below:
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The Republicans are meanwhile continuing to hammer away at what they see as weaknesses in the wall of Democratic unity revealed by party division on the subjects of antisemitism and impeachment.
Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of the aforementioned Dick, had this to say on Nancy Pelosi's leadership.
Prosecutors are arguing in a federal courthouse that Paul Manafort made “false statements to the FBI and false statements to the grand jury repeatedly.”
They have also argued against his attorneys’ claims that Manafort has been financially taking care of his friends and family, saying it isn’t an admirable trait “when it is done with other people’s money.”
Prosecutors are railing against Paul Manafort's crimes, claiming he has gone against American ideals and ideology.
Paul Manafort intends to address the court, as he did during his sentencing hearing in a separate case last week, where he addressed his lies to federal investigators.
Paul Manafort “had to make a choice,” prosecutors said on court on Wednesday. “He decided to represent foreign governments.”
The prosecutors have also alleged officials at the highest levels of government were aware of his foreign lobbying.
Paul Manafort is apologising in court to the judge for his crimes, saying, "In my previous allocation I told Judge Ellis I was ashamed for my conduct...I want to say to you now that I am sorry for what I have done and for all the activities that have gotten me here today."
The judge presiding over Paul Manafort's case has called a recess after the president's former campaign chairman apologised for his crimes in court, to consider what had been said today. She will return within the next hour, according to reporters on the scene.
"Let me be very clear, I accept the responsibility for the acts that caused me to be here today," Paul Manafort said in court on Wednesday. "While I cannot undo the past, I can assure the future will be very different."
He said he was upset in himself "for these personal failures. "My behavior in the future will be very different,” he added. “I have already begun to change.”
The judge is expected to return momentarily to deliver her sentencing for Paul Manafort.
As Paul Manafort awaits his sentencing, Donald Trump has seemingly been live-tweeting Fox News for three hours on Wednesday morning, decrying the media and lambasting the Democratic Party. The president has also legitimised conspiracy theories surrounding Melania Trump using a look-alike at multiple appearances by his side, denying them as "Fake News".
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