Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, had been expected to be transferred to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex this month to await trial on a separate state case.
But last week, Manhattan prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country inquiring about Mr. Manafort’s case. The letter, from Jeffrey A. Rosen, Attorney General William P. Barr’s new top deputy, indicated that he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York.
And then, on Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers.
“Paul Manafort Seemed Headed to Rikers. Then the Justice Department Intervened.
The decision came after Attorney General William Barr’s top deputy sent a letter to state prosecutors. Mr. Manafort will now be held in a federal lockup while he faces state charges.”
Calling this highly unusual doesn’t even begin to capture how strange it is for the no. 2 official at DOJ to intervene in a state custody issue. https://t.co/oX8gXwPVs4
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) June 17, 2019
Maybe they should just put him up at the Astoria.
This stinks.
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This sucks!
Stinks on ice !
I don’t know how close the closest federal facility is where Manafort can be held during his state trial but I’d think that two or three hours (one way) of commuting to court each day would be tougher for him than a secure holding wing (and yes, he would rate extra security instead of the typical Riker’s routine) at Riker’s.
Here’s a technical question. Once he is physically in the courtroom NY State will be responsible for him until they hand him back over to the feds at the end of the day for transport. Suppose the NY State folks decided not to relinquish custody and ship him off in one of their own vans to one of their own holding pens be it Riker’s or elsewhere? On such legal technicalities things could get interesting, and make for quite the State vs. Federal battle.
Think of it this way. The DOJ at the almost highest level has decided to interject itself into a state level prosecution. If I were leading the NY prosecution team my argument to the Judge would be that Manafort has had pardons offered, and now the second highest law enforcement official in the land has injected himself into things. IOW, who’s to say that at some point the feds might start refusing to bring Manafort to court? For “reasons” – that are never really articulated. The SCOTUS decision this week was something of a surprise, and I don’t think it’s wild speculation that the Trump administration expected a different ruling and were preparing to pardon Manafort. Now, issuing a pardon would ensure he (Manafort) is turned over to NY State authorities who won’t be the least bit inclined at that point to find a place in NY other than Riker’s to hold him during trial.
IOW Barr’s (and while he didn’t personally intervene Barr signed off on it because Trump wanted him to) jumping the gun last week to get involved might have done more to harm Manafort than to help him. And now Manafort definitely doesn’t want a pardon because he’d damn sure rather be held in a federal prison than do time in a NY State one once convicted as he surely will be!
I’m still trying to figure all this out. But for the moment I think the technical question is whether the authorities in NY can simply refuse to hand Manafort back to the feds at the end of the day and instead retain custody of him. With everything else going on I’m not sure Barr sending his minions to court to fight with NY State authorities is the kind of PR he wants on top of everything else. And it could make a contempt citation from Congress add to problems he might have holding on to his law license. This is a whole new and different abuse of authorities for the Bar(s) he’s a member of to consider.
From the linked article I take it there’s a fed lockup somewhere in Manhattan that’s a possibility, other than that there’s his current digs in PA.
You bring up some important considerations – would love to see this come back to bite them….
There is one in NYC – they call them “Metropolitan Correctional Centers”.
So Paulie gets Club Fed while other criminals, guilty of much lesser crimes, rot in Hell…….
Maybe Trump’s slogan should be “tough on innocent immigrants, easy on convicted criminals”.
*shakes head*
making it MORE interesting, Adam Klasfeld tweeted a link to DA Cyrus Vance’s letter about this, which includes the original, AKA “Blanche”, letter from Manafort’s law firm, as well as another letter.
link to letters (15-page PDF): https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6158498-6-14-19-Letter-From-DA-Vance-to-DAG-Rosen.html