UPDATE (2-26-19): Manafort's sentencing date has been moved up a day.
A federal judge in Virginia rescheduled the sentencing hearing for Paul Manafort, the former chairman of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, to March 7, according to a court filing on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear why the sentencing hearing was rescheduled from March 8.
Manafort sentencing hearing rescheduled to March 7: court filing (Reuters)
Paul Manafort will be sentenced on March 8 in his Virginia case, the first of two sentences expected to land the former Trump campaign chairman in prison for the rest of his life.
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III in a one-page order set out the sentencing plan for the 69-year-old Manafort, whom a jury in Northern Virginia convicted last summer on eight felony counts of bank and tax fraud.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors brought the case against Manafort and told Ellis last Friday that federal guidelines call for Manafort to get as long as 24½ years in prison in the Virginia case.
Manafort will then go in front of U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on March 13. She can sentence him to at most 10 years, a punishment that could run either concurrent with or after any Virginia prison term.
Manafort could be spared prison if he were to secure a presidential pardon, though the move would be a controversial one with Democrats in Congress already vowing to investigate any clemency moves tied to the Russia probe. Of a Manafort pardon, President Donald Trump said last November he “wouldn’t take it off the table.”
Manafort’s Virginia sentencing set for March 8 (Politico)
Virginia federal judge sets March 8 sentencing date for Paul Manafort (WaPo)