Tag: Paul Manafort

Mueller says Manafort violated plea agreement

Special Counsel Robert Mueller said in a new filing Monday that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s one-time campaign chairman, violated his plea agreement by lying to federal prosecutors.

“After signing the plea agreement, Manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel’s Office on a variety of subject matters, which constitute breaches of the agreement,” Mueller’s team said in a joint status report with Paul Manafort’s defense attorneys filed late Monday.

Mueller’s prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a date for sentencing.

View the complete November 26 article by Lydia Wheeler and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Mueller threat to Trump grows with Manafort deal

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s deal agreeing to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller poses a new danger to President Trump and his inner circle by providing prosecutors with additional inside information they previously would not have had, legal experts reacting to the news told The Hill.

Even voices that have been deeply critical of Mueller’s actions said it is definitely a big win for the special counsel to have secured cooperation from Manafort, though they cautioned that is remains unclear exactly what Manafort has.

“Potentially, [Manafort’s guilty plea] opens up lots of doors that probably haven’t been opened before,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who has frequently defended Trump over Mueller’s probe, said during a Friday appearance on MSNBC.

Paul Manafort cuts “cooperation agreement” with Robert Mueller

Activists outside the courthouse prior to Paul Manafort’s trial. Credit: Alex Wong, Getty Images

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has pleaded guilty to charges brought forth by special counsel Robert Mueller, and has entered into a “cooperation agreement” with the Justice Department. He’ll also plead guilty to the 10 charges that were declared a mistrial last month, per ABC News.

The bottom line: It’s not clear what kind of information Manafort has to provide Mueller — or who he might implicate. But five other charges were dropped by prosecutors, the NYT reports, “encompassing money laundering and violations of a lobbying disclosure law.”

The backdrop: Manafort was found guilty on eight criminal counts in August, including bank fraud, tax fraud and hiding a foreign bank account. And per the Times, he’s been “reassessing his legal risks” ever since.

View the complete September 14 post on the Axios.com website here

‘Yet Another Win for Bob Mueller’: Former Prosecutor Says the New Guilty Plea Shows the Russia Probe Is Not Slowing Down

The following article by Matthew Chapman was posted on the AlterNet website August 31, 2018:

After another week of Russia revelations, Guy Lewis has bad news for Trump: it is not going to stop soon.

On Friday, Sam Patten, a former associate of President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort, was charged by federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia with failing to register as a foreign agent working on behalf of Ukrainian politicians, and pleaded guilty to illegally diverting foreign funds into Trump’s inauguration and lying to Congress. He has now reportedly secured a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

While the charges were not directly brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who recently secured an eight-count conviction against Manafort himself, the case against Patten originated with a referral from Mueller’s team.

And according to former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, who worked with Mueller at the Justice Department, it is a sign that Mueller’s broad-based investigation is not going anywhere.

View the complete article here.

Manafort associate pleads guilty to illegal lobbying

The following Morgan Chalfant and Lydia Wheeler was posted on the Hill website August 31, 2018:

Courtroom sketch of Paul Manafort listening to U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III at federal court in Alexandria. Credit: Dana Verkouteren, AP

Sam Patten, a former associate of Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to illegally acting as a foreign agent and is now cooperating with the government.

Patten was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent in the United States.

The charges are related to Patten’s work lobbying on behalf of a political party in Ukraine, known as the Opposition Bloc, according to the criminal information document federal prosecutors filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday.

View the complete article here.

“Trump is nuts. This time really feels different”: Trump rejects “war council” intervention, goes it alone

The following article by Gabriel Sherman was posted on the Vanity Fair website August 27, 2018:

With his closest allies defecting, the president increasingly trusts only his instincts. He “got joy” from stripping former C.I.A. director John Brennan’s security clearance. And after betrayals by Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker, a former White House official says, Trump “spent the weekend calling people and screaming.”

After Michael Cohen’s plea deal last week, Donald Trump spiraled out of control, firing wildly in all directions. He railed against “flippers” in a rambling Fox & Friends interview, and lashed out on Twitter at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department, and Robert Mueller. In the wake of his outbursts, White House officials have discussed whether Trump would listen to his closest New York City friends in an effort to rein him in. Two sources briefed on the matter told me that senior officials talked about inviting Rudy Giuliani and a group of Trump’s New York real-estate friends including Tom Barrack, Richard LeFrak, and Howard Lorber to the White House to stage an “intervention” last week. “It was supposed to be a war council,” one source explained. But Trump refused to take the meeting, sources said. “You know Trump—he hates being lectured to,” the source added. (Spokespeople for LeFrak and Lorber say they have no knowledge of a meeting. A spokesperson for Barrack didn’t comment.) Continue reading ““Trump is nuts. This time really feels different”: Trump rejects “war council” intervention, goes it alone”

Trump’s Criminal Ex-Campaign Chair Almost Reached Deal with Robert Mueller — But It All Fell Apart: Report

The following article by Cody Fenwick was posted on the AlterNet.org website August 27, 2018:

Paul Manafort was found guilty on eights counts of federal crimes last week.

Donald Trump, Paul Manafort and Ivanka Trump check the podium at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 21, 2016. Credit: Bill Clark, CQ Roll Call, Getty Images

Only one person targeted by special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has tried to fight the prosecutors’ charges and taken the case to court: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.

Manafort was convicted last week on 8 counts, including bank and tax fraud. But according to a new report, his legal team actually met with Mueller to discuss to possibility of a plea deal, according to a new Wall Street Journalreport. He faces another set of charges in an upcoming case from the special counsel in September:

The plea discussions occurred as a Virginia jury was spending four days deliberating tax and bank fraud charges against Mr. Manafort, the people said. That jury convicted him on eight counts and deadlocked on 10 others. Prosecutors accused Mr. Manafort of avoiding taxes on more than $16 million he earned in the early 2010s through political consulting work in Ukraine.

View the complete article here.

Manafort verdict strengthens Mueller’s hand for round two

The following article by Lydia Wheeler was posted on the Hill website August 26, 2018:

It could be deja vu when Paul Manafort suits up for his second court battle next month.

Legal experts say that federal prosecutors, fresh off a victory this past week in Virginia, stand a good chance of securing a second conviction in Washington, D.C., with more evidence and more damning charges against Trump’s former campaign chairman brought by special counsel Robert Mueller‘s legal team.

Manafort is facing seven criminal charges, including conspiracy to launder money and failing to register as a foreign lobbyist in the trial slated to start Sept. 17.

View the complete article here.

‘He can’t get rid of any of this’: Trump’s wall of secrecy erodes amid growing legal challenges

The following article by David A. Fahrenthold, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website August 25, 2018:

President Trump’s wall of secrecy — the work of a lifetime — is starting to crack.

His longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last weekto breaking campaign-finance laws and said he had arranged hush-money payments to two women at Trump’s direction. A tabloid executive — who had served Trump by snuffing out damaging tales before they went public — and Trump’s chief financial officer gave testimony in the case.

All three had been part of the small circle of family, longtime aides and trusted associates who have long played crucial roles in Trump’s strategy to shield the details of his personal life and business dealings from prying outsiders.

View the complete article here.

‘Grave Mistake’: Trump-Supporting Manafort Juror Warns the President Against Pardoning His Ex-Campaign Chair

The following article by Matthew Chapman was posted on the AtlerNet.org website August 24, 2018:

Paula Duncan is a hardcore Trump supporter. But she found Manafort guilty and doesn’t want the president to intervene.

Paula Duncan is a steadfast supporter of President Donald Trump. She considers Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to be a “witch hunt.” When she was selected as a juror in the case of Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, which stemmed from Mueller’s investigation, she even brought her “Make America Great Again” hat to the federal courthouse for the Eastern District of Virginia and kept it in her car during the proceedings.

But even she could see, once the trial got going and Mueller’s prosecutors presented their evidence, that Manafort was guilty of money laundering and tax fraud. She voted to convict him on all 18 counts. And now, she has a message for the president she loves: don’t interefere.

“I feel it would be grave mistake for President Trump to pardon Paul Manafort,” Duncan told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an interview that will air on Friday night. “Justice was done, the evidence was there and that’s where it should stop.”

View the complete article here.