Political Prisoner by Paul Manafort

Author:Paul Manafort
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510772434
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Allegations

Neither the District Court Judge nor the Mueller prosecutors were interested in figuring out a fair bail package. It was just a game to them. They wanted to keep me tied down in home confinement where they could monitor everything I was doing. Between the time of my first indictment on October 30, 2017, to the time of my first trial in July 2018, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to craft a bail package that the Judge would accept.

It started with the magistrate accepting Weissman’s request for a $10 million bond. This is more than drug lords, mob bosses, or murderers have to post. It was as much if not more than Bernie Madoff or Michael Milliken or any of the Enron defendants had to post. Yet, for failing to file a FARA form, a violation that in the seventy-plus years of its existence had been used to indict someone under the criminal statute only six times with only one conviction, I had to come up with that kind of money.

Not only did I have to post the $10 million, but, confined to my home and with a GPS bracelet on my ankle, I was only allowed to go to church or see a doctor or meet with my attorneys. Every time I wanted to do one of those three things, I would have to notify the Special Counsel’s office. They were tracking me everywhere. And they were truly tracking me. I was very careful because I did not want to lose home confinement and be sent to jail. Once, coming back from a visit to my doctor, my wife and I stopped at a Starbucks that was en route to our home. I stayed in the car while she got herself a coffee. While walking into my condo, I received a call from my lawyer saying the Special Counsel called claiming I had taken an unauthorized side trip. I told Downing, “I didn’t take a side trip. I stopped at a Starbucks which was on the road home, and the stop took less time than a red light during rush hour.”

They were simply trying to make my life miserable, which meant I’d have to be even more careful. I had a porch on my condo, which was on the fourth floor. They tried to say I couldn’t go out on the porch. I ignored that.

After the indictment shock wore off, I was assured by my lawyers that this was an unprecedented bail package, and it wouldn’t stand. (This was the first time of what would be scores of times I was to hear the word “unprecedented” applied to my case.) They all felt the bail would be reduced when I appeared for arraignment in front of the Judge who would be assigned to me in the US District Court of the District of Columbia.

I took some comfort in their words, but my comfort proved unwarranted. My bail situation only got worse.

In fact, ultimately, I would present four bail packages and two appeals over the course of the six months.

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