Thread by @kpolantz

It's been a loooooooong 17 months since Paul Manafort was arrested. Let's walk through the highlights of this complicated case.

Manafort and Gates were arraigned on Oct. 30, 2017. Both put under house arrest, with $10M and $5M bail respectively cnn.com/2017/10/30/pol…

Special Counsel's office prosecutors dropped hints in an early court filing about trips Manafort took to foreign countries, including Spain and Ecuador, sometimes under a fake name. These trips came up later in news coverage about his work in 2016 and 2017
cnn.com/2017/10/31/pol…

Manafort and Gates both had a months-long struggle to try to post their full bail amounts, get out from house arrest. Manafort never did.
A judge let them spend Thanksgiving 2017 at family gatherings
cnn.com/2017/11/21/pol…

Prosecutors started laying on the pressure on Manafort early. Judge Jackson had put a gag order on his case.
Didn't take long for the prosecutors to find computer files that showed he ghost wrote an op-ed in support of himself for the Kyiv Post
cnn.com/2017/12/04/pol…

Mid-December 2017, it looked like Manafort had finally secured his $10 million bail. Judge approved his release from house arrest cnn.com/2017/12/15/pol…

AND THEN: February 2018.
His co-defendant Rick Gates starts proffering. Looks like he's going to flip. Bad news for Manafort.
cnn.com/2018/01/23/pol…

With Gates' status as a defendant still a question mark, prosecutors tell the judge they think Manafort has committed mortgage fraud, putting his house arrest release in jeopardy cnn.com/2018/02/16/pol…

Then we enter the week in February 2018 when everything changed. cnn.com/2018/02/15/pol…

Prosecutors hit both Manafort and Gates with a new set of extensive financial fraud charges in the Eastern District of Virginia cnn.com/2018/02/22/pol…

Rick Gates pleads guilty to two counts. Prosecutors agree to drop other charges he faces.
Manafort stands alone, facing two separate criminal cases, with more than a dozen charges, in two federal courts.
cnn.com/2018/02/23/pol…

Manafort loses one of several attempts to throw out charges he faces. cnn.com/2018/04/27/pol…

Even though he never cut down prosecutors' charges against Manafort, Judge T.S. Ellis in Virginia called the special counsel's team out on trying to use the case to "get" to Trump cnn.com/2018/05/04/pol…

June 2018: Prosecutors throw yet another criminal accusation at Manafort. Witness tampering with his Russian associate Konstantin Kilimnik cnn.com/2018/06/04/pol…

And that's when Judge Amy Berman Jackson sent Manafort to jail. He had violated his bail terms, she decided. He heads to a prison in rural Virginia first, then gets moved to Alexandria Detention Center into solitary confinement for his own safety cnn.com/2018/06/16/pol…

And then! Manafort's trial before a jury in Virginia federal court.
Full coverage:
cnn.com/politics/live-…

I didn't get to finish walking through the @CNN archives this morning for Manafort case developments before the sentencing hearing started. Where were we? Ah, the trial. cnn.com/2018/08/21/pol…

Guilty on 8 counts. On another 10 counts, no decision. On those, 11 jurors thought he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. One juror did not agree. cnn.com/2018/08/23/pol…

Then all start prepping for Manafort trial 2, this time in DC.
The DOJ opens another case related to Manafort, against lobbyist Sam Patten. A Mueller prosecutor shows up in court at his plea hearing. cnn.com/2018/08/31/pol…

So going into trial 2 set for September last year, prosecutors have some cooperators on their side--Gates and Patten, at very least. More than 100 jurors report to the courthouse for jury selection cnn.com/2018/09/04/pol…

That's when Manafort pleas. Admits to all the financial and lobbying allegations. Agrees to cooperate, share info. Gets a deal from prosecutors. Huge news for the Mueller probe. cnn.com/2018/09/14/pol…

Mueller appears to go silent in the run up to the mid-term elections. But my #CNNStakeout colleagues see Manafort + team heading into the Special Counsel's Office 9 times for interviews cnn.com/2018/10/17/pol…

Those interviews apparently did not go well. The Monday after Thanksgiving, prosecutors tell a judge they believe Manafort has lied to them and a federal grand jury about five main topics. cnn.com/2018/11/26/pol…

The alleged topics: Konstantin Kilimnik, another criminal investigation, a legal bills payment situation, and contact w Trump folks cnn.com/2018/12/07/pol…

The hearings over Manafort's breach of plea draw some new details out into the public. Manafort shared 2016 polling data with Kilimnik intended for their Ukraine clients, among other things.
Kilimnik, Kilimnik. He's at the "heart" of the investigation. cnn.com/2019/02/07/pol…

Then Judge Jackson makes her finding. Manafort lied intentionally about some of the things prosecutors discussed with him. Kilimnik was among that portion. The cooperation deal with Mueller is off. cnn.com/2019/02/13/pol…

Which brings us to sentencing. A three-hour round before Judge Ellis in Virginia, followed by a 2.5 hour hearing today with Judge Jackson. 7.5 years total in prison. cnn.com/2019/03/09/pol…

And that, as of midnight on March 13, 2019, is where the story of Paul Manafort opposite Robert Mueller in federal court ends. cnn.com/2019/03/13/pol…