The real reason Paul Manafort is now in a wheelchair
Because the Trump-Russia scandal needed a way to get even more dramatic and surreal, we’re now seeing one of the scandal’s most made-for-television moments to date: Paul Manafort showed up to court today in a wheelchair. This development set off a whole lot of confusion, eye rolling, and questions from observers on social media. So what’s really going on?
Paul Manafort’s official story is that he’s suffering an inflammation in his foot that’s being caused by his prison diet, according to CNN. As such, he can’t walk, and he’s confined to a wheelchair with his foot elevated. So can the body really be thrown off that badly by shifting from a lifelong diet of steak to a new diet of prison food? We’ll have to leave it to the medical experts to say whether or not that’s realistic. But what may be more interesting here is how Manafort’s team tried to use the medical issue to sway the judge’s decision.
Manafort is asking to be sentenced as quickly as possible, because he’ll then be moved from his current jail to a long-term prison facility, where the conditions will presumably be better. This is interesting, because in cooperating plea deal situations, the defendant usually wants to drag out the sentencing as long as possible. The more Manafort can prove his worth to prosecutors during the cooperation period, the more likely it is that he’ll end up with a short sentence.
Instead Paul Manafort is pushing to be sentenced sooner rather than later, and even playing up his apparently declining medical condition in the process, even if it means he could end up with a longer sentence. Perhaps Manafort – who is sixty-nine years old and is likely to serve several years in prison no matter what – has given up hope of ever getting out, and is simply aiming for better confinement conditions. In any case he got his wish, as the judge set his sentencing for February, whether Robert Mueller is done with him by that time or not.
