'He sank himself': CNN legal analyst explains how Manafort forced Judge Jackson to bring down the hammer
Judge Amy Berman Jackson brought the hammer down on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Wednesday, as she tacked on an additional 43 months to the prison sentence he was given last week.
Speaking on CNN shortly before the sentence, legal analyst Shan Wu broke down how Manafort had no one but himself to blame for getting slapped with more jail time given the additional crimes he committed even after being indicted for other crimes.
"He sank himself," Wu said. "It was the witness tampering which would really be the, kind of, moral basis for it being a harsh sentence."
Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig then chimed in to say that Judge Jackson not only scolded Manafort for lying to special counsel Robert Mueller and witness tampering after he'd already been caught, but also for the crimes he committed while working as an unregistered lobbyist in Ukraine.
"When she's talking about facts and transparency, I think she's talking about the other conspiracy pleaded guilty to, which is serving as an agent of a foreign government without registering," he said. "And I think she wants to make the point that this isn't just some paperwork crime... if our government doesn't know who's working for foreign countries, that poses a real threat to our democracy."
Watch the video below.
MSNBC graphic of Republican senators who have not announced 2020 re-election campaigns.[/caption]