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Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe said he was "shocked" by the sentence imposed on former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort last week after he was convicted of various financial crimes.
"I was really surprised by the sentence that was inflicted on him.I think it is an extremely lenient sentence considering not only the offenses for which he was convicted, but also the other offenses for which he pleaded guilty to Washington, "McCabe said at a court appearance. on "Face the Nation" of CBS.
"Like most people, I was shocked by the leniency of the sentence," he added.
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Manafort was sentenced last week to almost four years in prison for tax and banking fraud because of his work advising Ukrainian politicians – a sentence well below that required by the sentencing guidelines.
Manafort has been imprisoned since June and will receive a credit for the nine months he has already served. He is still likely to have an additional delay from the determination of his sentence in a separate case in the District of Columbia.
This conviction provoked much criticism and opened the debate as to whether the justice system was equitably treating different crimes and criminals.
Judge TS Ellis III's comment that Paul Manafort had led an "otherwise irreproachable life" was particularly irritating to those who claimed that Manafort's past included work for such personalities as the strong man of Philippines Ferdinand Marcos and Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
Senator Cory Booker, Democratic presidential candidate, said "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Thursday night that the criminal justice system "treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent" and the more vulnerable, such as "the poor, the mentally ill, drug addicts and the vast majority of blacks and browns".
When asked when he was in shock, Booker replied, "No, this criminal justice system can no longer surprise me."
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Many observers have evoked the case of Crystal Mason, a Texas black woman who had been sentenced in a state court last year to five years in prison for voting illegally in 2016, while She was on probation after being released. Mason said that she did not know that she was not allowed to vote.
His lawyer, Alison Grinter, said Friday that the judge's statement that Manafort was "irreproachable" was infuriating, especially since he is awaiting sentence in another case in Washington, where he is still at risk. years. The Washington judge who will sentence him next week has the option to impose this sentence simultaneously or consecutively.
McCabe added during his interview Sunday that Manafort "would not make any questions" after being sentenced this week by a court judge, but said that it was not up to judge Amy Berman Jackson to take into account the sentence handed down in Virginia.
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McCabe, who was fired from his position at the FBI last year after an internal report revealed that he was not showing up with investigators, criticized Trump's frequent attacks against the system the country's judiciary and its defense of Manafort. The former deputy director of the FBI, however, said he did not think Trump's remarks had influenced Manafort's sentence last week.
"But the point I'm trying to make [McCabe’s new book “The Threat] is to point out how incredibly irresponsible and truly corrosive these statements by the Executive Director are to the process and the public's perception of the fairness and efficiency of the process. "
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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