By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, a curmudgeonly fellow who’s not shy about speaking his mind, defended his sentencing Thursday of ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. He gave him 48 months, far less than the 20 years Manafort faced under sentencing guidelines.
Speaking before a packed courtroom in Alexandria, Va., he said that anyone who didn’t think the punishment was tough enough should “go and spend a day, a week in jail or in the federal penitentiary. He has to spend 47 months,” according to a report in the Washington Post.
Ellis, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, called that guidelines calculation “excessive.”
