Trump's ex-campaign manager 'lied' to FBI
November 27, 2018
US President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to the FBI and special counsel investigators after pleading guilty to federal charges, according to a court filing on Monday.
Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing alleged collusion between the Trump 2016 election campaign and Russia, has accused Manafort of breaching his plea agreement.
In a new court filing, prosecutors said that after Manafort agreed to truthfully cooperate with the investigation, he "committed federal crimes" by lying about "a variety of subject matters." They are now asking a federal judge to set a date to sentence him.
Manafort is denying that he lied. His attorneys said in the same filing that he believes he "provided truthful information."
Manafort had been meeting with the special counsel's office since he pleaded guilty in September and agreed to cooperate. He remains jailed while awaiting his sentence. He faces multiple years in prison.
Political operator
Manafort, who has been a Republican political consultant for many years, made tens of millions of dollars working for pro-Kremlin politicians in Ukraine. He ran the Trump campaign as it took off in mid-2016.
In June 2016 he attended a Trump Tower meeting with a group of Russians offering damaging information on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the presidential vote that November.
Since September of this year when he accepted a plea deal in return for reduced charges, Manafort has been cooperating with Mueller's inquiry.
Russia has denied US allegations it hacked Democratic Party emails and ran a disinformation campaign, largely on social media. Trump denies any campaign collusion and calls the investigation a political witch hunt.
av/rt (dpa, AFP, AP)