And the defense did little to inspire the Court’s confidence when it insisted at the hearing
that the defendant complied with the Court’s requirements – when they were “abundantly clear,”
or when they were “clear and unambiguous.” In the Court’s view, the broad prohibition contained
in the order entered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on
Marcy 9, 2018 is clear and unambiguous:
Defendant must avoid all contact, directly or indirectly, with any person
who is a victim or witness in the investigation or prosecution of the
defendant.
United States v. Paul J. Manafort, Jr., 18-cr-00083 (TSE) [Dkt. # 25] ¶ (viii). The Court is very
troubled by the evidence that the contacts allegedly made on the defendant’s behalf by Kilimnik
continued after the order was entered, and that multiple messages specifically attribute the
re-initiation of the attempts to contact D1 to the defendant. (“My friend P asked me again to help
connect him with [Person D1].”) This Court does not have the jurisdiction to sanction a violation
of another Court’s order, but it may certainly consider the defendant’s adherence to that Court’s
admonitions in determining whether it can place its trust in the defendant.
The defendant proposed only one condition that could protect the community, and that was
the issuance of an order that would absolutely be clear enough for him to follow. He emphasized
that he could not possibly know which witnesses to avoid without a list provided by the United
States, and his insistence on this level of specificity, on top of a standard order not to contact
witnesses, or a standard order not to commit another criminal offense, simply highlights why the
Court finds it necessary to conclude under section 3148(b)(2)(A) that there is no condition or
combination of conditions that will suffice in this case. As the Court observed at the conclusion
of the hearing, there is a real risk that the defendant will interpret any list naming certain
individuals as license to contact any other individuals involved in the investigation. The Court
cannot draft an order that is specific enough to cover every possible future violation of the United
States Code, and it should not have to.
Given the nature of the allegations in the superseding indictment and the evidence supplied
in support of the government’s motion, including the number of contacts and attempted contacts,
the persistence of the efforts to make contact, the inferences that can be drawn from what was said,
and the clear impact the statements had on the recipient, who reported them to the prosecution as
an attempt to suborn perjury, FBI Aff. ¶ 19, the Court finds that the presumption has not been
overcome, and that there are no conditions that would assure that the defendant will comply with
the most fundamental condition of release under the Bail Reform Act: that he not commit a
Federal, State, or local crime during the period of release. See 18 U.S.C. §3142(b).
Moreover, the Court finds that even if the defendant had offered up some additional
practical conditions that could to be layered on top of the terms under which he is already
operating, it could not find, as the statute requires that it must, that defendant Manafort would
abide by those conditions. See 18 U.S.C. §3148(b). The defendant has already experienced some
difficulty adhering to this Court’s directives and another Court’s directives, and his apparent belief
that any such directives should be construed as narrowly as possible leaves the Court with the
unshakeable impression that he cannot be trusted to comply in the future.
For all of these reasons, and for all of the reasons stated on the record at the hearing, the
government’s motion to revoke the defendant’s bond has been granted, and his motion to reduce
the conditions of release is denied as moot.
