Can we talk a little bit about Paul Manafort's week? Like, can you, it's, he's been really busy.

Yes, and prosecutors have been busy too.

Jed Sugarman follows all things Mueller investigation for Slate. I wanted to give him a call because

Paul Manafort had a rough week. He showed up in court

looking pretty frail, gray hair in a wheelchair. Then he got sentenced to prison for crimes like

tax fraud and witness tampering. Manifort did not do what many defendants do do, which is show

contrition and many defendants will write a letter to the court,

where they get a chance with their lawyers to show what they've learned and their shame and

their contrition. And it was remarkable that Manafort did not do that, and Judge Jackson made a point

to show that this is not a sufficient showing

of remorse. So it's interesting. It's like he's presenting a kind of pitiful facade, but he's not

apologizing. That's basically right. To the extent that there have been apologies, it's more

of kind of a wallowing and self-pity more than actually recognizing the damage done.

All you really need to know about Manafort is that he had an opportunity, he had many

opportunities for redemption in the past year, if he had a conscience.

You might remember that Paul Manafort originally had a plea deal with Robert Mueller.

Then he was caught lying, to the FBI, to the grand jury.

And now he's looking at seven and a half years in prison.

I think what you see over this pattern is someone who seems to not have a conscience and seems

to not understand even to be able to fake remorse.

But Jed isn't that interested in Manafort's psychology.

He looks at everything that's happening here as a constitutional scholar.

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