Paul Manifort has bail revoked ... and has not (yet) gotten rescued from jail by Prez Trump's clemency pen

As detailed in this CNN piece, a very prominent federal defendant grew the number of Americans incarcerated yesterday when he had his bail revoked and was taken immediately to jail:

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort will await his trial for foreign lobbying charges from jail.  Two weeks after special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors dropped new accusations of witness tampering on him, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday revoked Manafort's bail, which had allowed him to live in his Alexandria, Virginia, apartment under house arrest.

The order marked an end to almost eight months of attempts by Manafort to lighten his house arrest restrictions after he was charged and pleaded not guilty to foreign lobbying violations. "The harm in this case is harm to the administration of justice and harm to the integrity of the court's system," Berman Jackson told Manafort in court.

The judge emphasized to Manafort how she could not make enough rulings to keep him from speaking improperly with witnesses, after he had used multiple text messaging apps and called a potential witness on an Italian cellphone.  "This is not middle school. I can't take his cellphone," she said of Manafort.  "I thought about this long and hard, Mr. Manafort. I have no appetite for this."

Manafort also entered a not guilty plea to two additional charges levied against him last week, of witness tampering and conspiracy to obstruct justice. In total, he faces seven criminal charges in DC federal court. Three US marshals led Manafort out of the packed courtroom into the prisoner holding area immediately after the judge's ruling. He was not placed in handcuffs. Before he disappeared through the door, he turned toward his wife and supporters and gave a stilted wave.

Minutes later, a marshal returned to give Manafort's wife, Kathleen, still standing in the courtroom's front row, his wallet, belt and the burgundy tie he wore Friday. Court marshals held Manafort in the bowels of the courthouse for several hours following the hearing as they considered how to keep him protected from other inmates behind bars. He arrived about 8 p.m. at the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia, 90 miles south of Washington.

In a tweet, President Donald Trump said the decision to revoke Manafort's bail was "tough," although he referred to it as a "sentence."

I cannot help but recall in this context the decision by Prez George W. Bush, made just under 11 years ago as reported here, to commute the entire prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to spare him from having to serve his 30 month prison term after his conviction in the CIA leak case.  Notably, Prez Bush's clemency grant came down just a few hours after the DC Circuit refused to allow Libby to remain free on bail during the appeal of his conviction and sentence.  In other words, as soon as Libby was subject to spending even an hour incarcerated, Prez Bush was moved to act to keep him free.  Paul Manafort, notably, has not (yet) gotten the presidential consideration as he has now already spent one (of likely many) nights in jail without even yet having been convicted of anything.