Calling it a victory for rich white people, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post slammed the 47 months given to convicted Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as perverse and a slap in the face to average Americans.

According to Jennifer Rubin, the slap on the wrist for Manafort delivered by Judge T.S. Ellis was not only wrong but, “added insult to injury by stating Manafort had lived a ‘blameless’ life before getting caught committing a host of crimes.”

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As Rubin noted, “Ellis seems to have been unaware that for a good deal of his adult life, Manafort made money — blood money, his own daughter called it — representing a rogues’ gallery of butchers.”

“Manafort did not commit just one crime but eight, the jury found. His crime spree continued for a decade as he deliberately cheated on his taxes, defrauded banks and hid foreign bank accounts,” Rubin explained. “His motive was pure greed and, to this day, he has yet to acknowledge guilt. He was ‘humiliated,’ he said in court, because he got caught.”

Rubin then lambasted the judge for “perpetuating” a system where the rich get off easy, while the poor suffer the most.

‘It will only perpetuate the view of many Americans that if you are rich and white, you get one standard of justice; if poor and nonwhite, another,” the columnist wrote. ” Minimal sentences give huge incentives for white-collar criminals, who will make a cost-benefit analysis and conclude it’s worth the risk to lie, defraud, cheat, etc. if the only real downside is the possibility of a few years in a relatively cushy federal prison.”

“In the case of Manafort, the result is especially perverse,” she added, before noting that light sentences would encourage those caught up in the multiple investigations into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and business dealings.

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“The light ruling also hobbles prosecutors by discouraging cooperation. What’s the point of cooperating, as Michael Cohen did, to get a few years in jail when you can remain defiant and get just about the same punishment? “she wrote before concluding, “Americans deserve better than what Ellis handed down Thursday.”

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