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Paul Manafort Agrees to Cooperate With Special Counsel; Pleads Guilty to Reduced Charges Paul Manafort Agrees to Cooperate With Special Counsel; Pleads Guilty to Reduced Charges
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, agreed on Friday to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as part of a deal in which he pleaded guilty to reduced charges stemming from consulting work he did for pro-Russia political forces in Ukraine. WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort agreed on Friday to tell all he knows to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as part of a plea deal that could shape the final stages of the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Appearing in United States District Court in Washington, Mr. Manafort entered guilty pleas on two conspiracy charges. Andrew Weissmann, the lead prosecutor, told Judge Amy Berman Jackson that there was a cooperation agreement with Mr. Manafort but provided no details. The deal was a surrender by Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, who had vowed for months to prove his innocence in a case stemming from his work as a political consultant in Ukraine. And it was a decisive triumph for Mr. Mueller, who now has a cooperating witness who was at the center of the Trump campaign during a crucial period in 2016 and has detailed insight into another target of federal prosecutors, the network of lobbyists and influence brokers seeking to help foreign interests in Washington.
It was not immediately clear what information Mr. Manafort might provide to prosecutors or how the plea agreement might affect Mr. Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related questions about possible collusion by the Trump campaign and obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump. Mr. Manafort’s decision, announced at a federal court hearing in Washington in which he pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges, was a distinct setback for Mr. Trump, who had praised Mr. Manafort for standing up to prosecutors’ pressure and had hinted that he might pardon him.
The plea deal is another unsettling development for Mr. Trump. For months, Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Manafort for fighting the charges. In private discussions with his lawyers, Mr. Trump has raised the possibility of pardoning Mr. Manafort. [Read the court documents.]
It is not clear what information Mr. Manafort offered prosecutors in the negotiations that led to the plea deal. But in court on Friday, Mr. Manafort agreed to an open-ended arrangement that requires him to answer “fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly” questions about “any and all matters” the government wants to ask about.
The president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, quickly sought to distance Mr. Trump from the plea deal.The president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, quickly sought to distance Mr. Trump from the plea deal.
“Once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign,” he said in a statement. “The reason: The president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth.”“Once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign,” he said in a statement. “The reason: The president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth.”
Kevin Downing, one of Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, said it was a “tough day” for his client. Mr. Mueller’s investigation has maintained such secrecy that it is impossible to know what puzzle pieces he might still be trying to fill in or what Mr. Manafort’s testimony might mean for Mr. Trump. But at a minimum, Mr. Manafort’s cooperation gives Mr. Mueller additional visibility into some key moments in the campaign and the role of other senior figures.
“He has accepted responsibility and this is for conduct that dates back many years,” Mr. Downing said. “And everybody should remember that.” Mr. Manafort was a participant in the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that had been arranged by a Moscow lawyer who said she was delivering damaging information about Hillary Clinton on the Kremlin’s behalf. His cooperation could help Mr. Mueller establish how much, if anything, the Trump campaign knew about Russia’s efforts to boost Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
Mr. Manafort held senior roles in the Trump campaign for five months in 2016, a period of intense interest to Mr. Mueller’s team. Mr. Manafort joins four other Trump aides who have offered cooperation in exchange for lesser charges in cases that Mr. Mueller’s office either pursued or referred to federal prosecutors in New York. They include Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer; Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser; Rick Gates, the former deputy campaign chairman; and George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser.
Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine also put him in the middle of a network of lobbyists and influence brokers who are now under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. They include Tony Podesta, a prominent Democratic lobbyist; Vin Weber, a former Republican member of Congress, and Gregory Craig, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration. Mr. Manafort, 69, had insisted for a year that he would not assist the special counsel’s office. But after being convicted on eight felony counts in a federal court in Virginia last month, and facing a second trial on more felony charges in federal court here, Mr. Manafort was confronted with the very real prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.
As part of the deal, the government has the authority to seize four of Mr. Manafort’s homes in New York and Virginia as well as the money in a number of bank accounts, court documents filed by prosecutors said. Under the agreement announced Friday, prosecutors replaced a seven-count indictment with one that charged two counts of conspiracy that carry a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars. No sentencing date has been set for those charges or the ones he was convicted of in Northern Virginia.
In documents filed with the United States District Court in Washington, prosecutors from Mr. Mueller’s office charged Mr. Manafort with one count of conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty to those charges. Mr. Manafort also agreed to surrender most of his once-vast personal fortune including three houses and two apartments — one in Trump Tower in Manhattan.
[Read the court documents.] At the court hearing, Mr. Manafort, who has been in jail since June, appeared weary and subdued. He sat grim-mouthed, eyes cast downward, as Andrew Weissmann, the lead prosecutor on his case, read through what Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court called the longest recitation of offenses she had ever heard in her courtroom. A full contingent of prosecutors and F.B.I. agents who had worked on Mr. Manafort’s case showed up for the hearing.
Mr. Manafort was not sentenced. For now he will remain in jail, where he has been since June, when prosecutors accused him of witness tampering. Kevin Downing, Mr. Manafort’s lead lawyer, said it was a “tough day for Mr. Manafort but he has accepted responsibility” for criminal conduct that dates back “many years.” He added, “He wanted to make sure his family was able to remain safe and live a good life.”
The prosecutors dropped five other charges encompassing money laundering and violations of a lobbying disclosure law. In deciding whether to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors, Mr. Manafort weighed the possibility that Mr. Trump would pardon him, according to two people familiar with his situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. When weeks passed after his conviction in Northern Virginia with no word of a pardon, Mr. Manafort decided he needed to rethink his legal strategy, one person said.
Mr. Manafort was convicted last month on bank and tax fraud charges after a trial in federal court in Alexandria, Va. He was scheduled to face a second trial on the seven separate but related charges in Washington starting next week. Mr. Trump assailed plea deals after Mr. Cohen, his long time lawyer, pleaded guilty last month to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges, implicating Mr. Trump in the cover-up of a potential sex scandal during the 2016 presidential race. Mr. Trump said then that trading information on someone else for lesser charges or a lighter sentence “almost ought to be outlawed.”
It is not clear what information Mr. Manafort might have that would be valuable to Mr. Mueller’s investigation. Mr. Manafort served in several roles in the Trump campaign, and was present for the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between a number of campaign officials and a Russian lawyer who was thought to be offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. John M. Dowd, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, emailed lawyers representing other clients who have been drawn into Mr. Mueller’s inquiry that Mr. Manafort “has no info on president or campaign.”
Mr. Manafort was once a business partner of another person who has figured in the Mueller inquiry: Roger Stone, who was once a political adviser to Mr. Trump. And in his Trump campaign roles, he worked closely with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. Of all Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers, Mr. Manafort arguably had the deepest ties to Russian operatives and oligarchs. He worked for years in Ukraine with Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian citizen who prosecutors have said had ties with a Russian intelligence service that continued into 2016.
Mr. Manafort had business dealings with Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who has close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. By 2016, Mr. Deripaska was suing Mr. Manafort and his business partner, Rick Gates, for tens of millions of dollars he said they owed him. Mr. Manafort claimed that Mr. Deripaska was in fact in debt to him. He also had a business relationship with Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. At one point, Mr. Deripaska lent Mr. Manafort $10 million that prosecutors suggested was never repaid.
In July 2016, just before the Republican National Convention, Mr. Manafort sought to get a message to Mr. Deripaska offering “private briefings” about the presidential race. In July 2016, just before the Republican National Convention when Mr. Manafort was heading the Trump campaign, he sent a message Mr. Deripaska through Mr. Kilimnik that he was ready to provide “private briefings” about the presidential race.
Mr. Manafort tried to pass that message to Mr. Deripaska through Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian citizen whose relationship with Mr. Manafort has figured repeatedly in court filings by Mr. Mueller’s team. Prosecutors have said Mr. Kilimnik had active ties to a Russian intelligence service — including during 2016, when he was in contact with both Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates. Mr. Manafort could also be instrumental in investigations now underway of lobbyists and influence-brokers who worked with him in Ukraine, including Tony Podesta, a prominent Democratic lobbyist; Vin Weber, a former Republican member of Congress; and Gregory Craig, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration. Prosecutors said on Friday that officials from Mr. Podesta and Mr. Weber’s firm knew about Mr. Manafort’s machinations to disguise his lobbying work.
For the previous decade, the three men had worked together promoting pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine and boosting the political fortunes of Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was elected president of Ukraine in 2010. Although they dismissed some charges, the prosecutors used the conspiracy charges to which Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty as umbrella counts, encompassing crimes ranging from money laundering to obstruction of justice. In court, Mr. Weissmann described a decade of criminal activity in which Mr. Manafort enriched himself by promoting the political career of Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014.
Four former Trump aides in addition to Mr. Manafort have pleaded guilty to charges related to the special counsel investigation: Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer; Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser; Rick Gates, the former deputy campaign chairman; and George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser. He described how Mr. Manafort had illegally operated as the hidden hand behind a multiyear campaign to burnish Mr. Yanukovych’s reputation in the United States and damage the image of his main political opponent, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister. The court documents revealed new details about how Mr. Manafort directed a host of players to lobby under false pretenses, pretending to be independent actors when they were in fact paid agents of Mr. Yanukovych.
The president railed against plea deals in general after Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty last month to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges, implicating Mr. Trump in the cover-up of a potential sex scandal during the 2016 presidential race. Mr. Trump said that trading information on someone else for lesser charges or a lighter sentence “almost ought to be outlawed.” That secrecy was important not only because Mr. Manafort never reported that lobbying activity to the Justice Department, as required, but also hid tens of millions of dollars in payments from Ukraine, laundering money through overseas bank accounts and avoiding taxes on $15 million in income.
Mr. Manafort, who had repeatedly insisted that he would not cooperate with the special counsel, has been reassessing his legal risks after last month’s trial. He was found guilty in that case of eight counts of tax fraud, bank fraud and failure to report a foreign bank account, crimes that legal experts predicted were likely to result in a prison term of six to 12 years. Among other measures, Mr. Manafort orchestrated a misleading 2012 report by an American law firm to try to tamp down criticism of the Ukraine government for prosecuting and jailing of Ms. Tymoshenko.
The court filings by the prosecutors provided abundant new details about the surreptitious techniques Mr. Manafort used to try to advance the interests of the former president of Ukraine, Viktor F. Yanukovych, in the United States between 2006 and 2014. Mr. Manafort also coordinated with an unnamed senior Israeli official to undermine support for Ms. Tymoshenko within the Obama administration by claiming Ms. Tymoshenko was anti-Semitic. “The Jewish community will take this out on Obama on Election Day if he does nothing,” Mr. Manafort wrote in one communication.
The charging papers detailed Mr. Manafort’s previously undisclosed work with “a senior Israeli government official” and two European consultants to discredit Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a political opponent who Mr. Yanukovych’s government prosecuted and ultimately jailed. He worked with European consultants to plant articles in the United States alleging that Ms. Tymoshenko had orchestrated the murder of a Ukrainian official. He wrote to one colleague that he wanted “to plant some stink on Tymo,” using a nickname for Ms. Tymoshenko, but stressed that there should be “no fingerprints” on the articles.
Mr. Manafort admitted to coordinating with the Israeli official, who prosecutors did not identify, on an effort to pressure Jewish officials in the Obama administration — whom Mr. Manafort called “[O]bama jews” at the time — to temper their support for Ms. Tymoshenko by highlighting her alliance with a Ukrainian political party that espoused antisemitic views, according to prosecutors. And he waged an “all-out campaign” to kill a Senate resolution that would have condemned Ms. Tymoshenko’s treatment by Mr. Yanukovych’s government without ever revealing to the senators that his lobbyists were paid by Ukrainian oligarchs backing Mr. Yanukovych. One consultant working for Mr. Manafort lobbied President Barack Obama directly on Ukraine by accompanying his country’s prime minister to an Oval Office meeting, the prosecutors said.
“The Jewish community will take this out on Obama on election day if he does nothing,” Mr. Manafort wrote in a private communication at the time that was detailed by prosecutors. Mr. Manafort also acknowledged that he and Mr. Kilimnik, his Russian associate, tried to persuade two witnesses to lie to federal investigators about the lobbying campaign for Mr. Yanukovych in the United States.
And Mr. Manafort worked with the two European consultants — who are not named in the charging document, but who The New York Times has identified as Alan Friedman and Eckart Sager — to plant new stories in the United States with “no fingerprints” alleging that Ms. Tymoshenko had paid for the murder of a Ukrainian official, according to prosecutors. Mr. Manafort wrote at the time to a colleague that his goal was “to plant some stink on Tymo” — referring Ms. Tymoshenko by a nickname — and stressed that it was “very important we have no connection.”
Mr. Manafort also waged an “all out campaign” to kill a Senate resolution that would have condemned the treatment of Ms. Tymoshenko by Mr. Yanuovych’s government, without ever revealing to the senators who met with his lobbyists that they were paid by the campaign, the prosecutors said.