I know there's still more sentencing to come, but this is ridiculous. The sentencing guidelines were for 19-24 years. That is some serious old rich white man privilege.
To be fair, in most jurisdictions four years would be regarded as a significant sentence, particularly for a defendant with no previous convictions who is almost 70 (though, at least in the UK, his age wouldn't provide much mitigation) .
It's only in the USA, where sentences are vastly excessive by most other countries' standards, that it seems lenient. To receive from a British judge the nineteen years suggested by the prosecution you'd have to do something really pretty dreadful -- it's longer than many murderers serve (and our sentences are considered severe by most people's standards).
Perhaps the judge didn't want to pre-empt the sentencing in the Washington DC case later this month, where Judge Berman Jackson will presumably have the option of imposing a consecutive sentence on top of the four years.
If he'd given Manafort the nineteen-odd years the prosecution requested, it wouldn't make much practical difference if she gives him ten years or six months for the crimes for which she must sentence him, or if she makes the sentence she imposes consecutive or concurrent.
In the UK, if the prosecution think the judge departed from the sentencing guidelines without good reason, they can appeal to have the sentence increased, just as the defence can appeal against sentences that they think are too severe. I take it that's not an option in the US federal courts.
Certainly reading comments on the sentence on Twitter yesterday, where people were comparing it with what people are given for selling comparatively small quantities of weed, I agreed on the discrepancy but thought that they should be outraged not so much about Manafort's sentence but about what other people are given for lesser crimes.
