Special counsel Robert Mueller urged a federal judge in Virginia on Friday to sentence ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort to between about 19 years to 24 years in prison.
Mueller, in a court filing, also suggested the judge fine Manafort between $50,000 to $24 million, order the longtime Republican operative to pay restitution of more than $24 million, and forfeit more than $4 million.
The special counsel’s recommendation is in line with a pre-sentencing report conducted by federal probation officials.
Mueller’s filing came hours after he asked the judge in the case, T.S. Ellis, to set a sentencing date for Manafort“as soon as practicable.”
“For a decade, Manafort repeatedly violated the law,” the filing said. “Considering only the crimes charged in this district, they make plain that Manafort chose to engage in a sophisticated scheme to hide millions of dollars from United States authorities.”
Manafort was convicted at trial last Aug. 21 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia of eight felony counts, which included tax fraud, failure to file a report of a foreign bank and financial accounts, and bank fraud. A jury deadlocks on other counts.
The case was related to income Manafort earned while doing consulting work for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine. That work predated his tenure of leading the Trump campaign for several months in 2016.
Manafort already is due to be sentenced March 13 in a related criminal case in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. He pleaded guilty in that case in September, days before a scheduled trial, to two counts of conspiracy.
As part of his gulty plea, Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and possible efforts by members of Trump’s campaign to aid that interference.
However, in November, Mueller accused Manafort of breaking that plea deal by lying to federal authorities about multiple subjects.
Earlier this week, the judge in the Washington case, Amy Berman Jackson, said that Manafort had lied several times to the FBI, the special counsel’s office and a grand jury. But she also said Mueller had failed to provide enough evidence to prove Manafort had lied about several other issues.
Jackson’s finding means that the special counsel is no longer bound to recommend any leniency for Manafort when he is sentenced.
Manafort’s legal team had disputed Mueller’s claim that he broke the plea deal.
Earlier Friday, Trump’s spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she has been interviewed by Mueller’s team.
Manafort, 69, has been in jail without bail since last June, when Mueller asked him and a former business associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, of trying to tamper with witnesses in what was at the time his upcoming criminal trials.
Mueller has accused Kilimnik of being a Russian spy. Kiliminik has denied that claim, but he remains abroad, and out of reach of American authorities.
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