Ex-Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort hospitalized after suffering cardiac event in prison

New York Daily News
Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019 4:53 p.m. | Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019 4:53 p.m.

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives in a New York court. Manafort has been hospitalized during his federal prison sentence. That’s according to two people familiar with the matter who couldn’t discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Disgraced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was hospitalized late last week as a result of suffering a cardiac event in prison, according to his attorney.

The attorney, Todd Blanche, declined to elaborate on the 70-year-old ex-Trump campaign chief’s condition, but told the Daily News he was still recovering Tuesday at a hospital in Pennsylvania.

Manafort was supposed to appear in court Wednesday in New York over an ongoing state criminal case, but his legal team was recently informed he wouldn’t make it because of the health complications.

Paul Manafort, the imprisoned former campaign manager for President Trump, has been hospitalized, his lawyer said Tuesday. https://t.co/tHv7Emqjg3

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 17, 2019

ABC News reported Manafort was in stable condition and could be released soon.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons declined to comment.

Manafort has been behind bars at the U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan Township near Scranton since April. He’s serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence over his conviction on charges stemming from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with President Trump’s campaign.

He’s set to be released Christmas Day 2024.

The once high-flying GOP strategist appeared in court last year in a wheelchair, and his lawyers have several times unsuccessfully asked judges to shorten his sentence because of health concerns. In a court filing in January, Manfort’s legal team said he has gout.

Statement from Manafort attorney Todd Blanche on Manafort’s condition & lack of info from Bureau of Prisons despite their repeated attempts to receive info. Blanche last spoke to his client early last week. —> pic.twitter.com/JLCkKVzfzV

— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) December 17, 2019

Manafort was convicted on a laundry list of charges in two separate federal cases earlier this year. The crimes were not directly related to Trump’s campaign, though they were unearthed by Mueller’s investigators over the course of their Russia probe.

Many of Manafort’s financial crimes stemmed from his shadowy consulting work on behalf of Ukraine’s former pro-Kremlin president, who lives in exile in Russia after being accused of embezzling billions of dollars from his home country.

Adding to Manafort’s legal headaches, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. charged him shortly after his federal cases wrapped up with 16 counts of state mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. Those charges stem from an alleged self-enrichment scheme involving properties Manafort owned across New York City.

Sources familiar with Vance’s thinking told the Daily News at the time that the DA filed the charges as a firewall to make sure Manafort faces justice in the event that Trump pardons his federal crimes.