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Manafort Lied About Contacts With Trump Officials, Mueller Says Mueller Says Manafort Lied About Contacts With Trump Officials
(about 2 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Friday accused Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, of lying to them about his contacts with Trump administration officials and other issues, including his interactions with Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian tied to Moscow’s intelligence services. WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, lied to federal investigators about his contacts with Trump administration officials and his interactions with a Russian linked to Moscow’s intelligence services, the special counsel’s office said on Friday.
After signing a plea agreement in September, Mr. Manafort “stated he had no direct or indirect communications with anyone in the administration while they were in the administration and that he never asked anyone to try to communicate a message to anyone in the administration on any subject matter,” prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, wrote in a memo to Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He also lied about a $125,000 payment and information he provided in another case, prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said in a partly redacted court filing explaining why they withdrew last week from a plea agreement they had reached with Mr. Manafort in September.
But, they said, Mr. Manafort hid information from them about his contacts with Trump administration officials, telling “multiple discernible lies — these were not instances of mere memory lapses.” Though he had told prosecutors earlier that he had “no direct or indirect communications” with any administration official while they were in government, Mr. Manafort had in fact kept in touch with a senior official through February 2018, prosecutors said. In another instance, he authorized someone else to speak with a Trump appointee on his behalf, they wrote. They also detailed additional contacts with administration officials, citing a search of his documents.
They also accused Mr. Manafort of lying about a $125,000 transfer of funds. “Manafort told multiple discernible lies — these were not instances of mere memory lapses,” the prosecutors wrote in a memo to Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Mr. Mueller’s team has left open the possibility that it could file new charges for lying against Mr. Manafort. Mr. Manafort’s lawyers say he believes he was honest during his interviews with them. Mr. Mueller’s team has left open the possibility that it could file new charges of lying against Mr. Manafort. His lawyers say he believes he was honest during his interviews with the special counsel’s office.
Mr. Mueller’s office also filed a recommendation for the sentencing of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, alongside a scathing attack from prosecutors in Manhattan who rejected Mr. Cohen’s request to avoid a prison term and accused him of using his power and influence “for deceptive ends.” The filing is a new example of Mr. Mueller’s low tolerance for misstatements or dissembling as investigators examine Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and whether any of Mr. Trump’s associates conspired with Moscow’s operation. Including Mr. Manafort, Mr. Mueller’s team has accused five former aides to Mr. Trump of lying to them.
The new documents were signed by Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor known for his no-holds-barred approach and who has become a favorite target of President Trump’s. “He wrongly destroyed people’s lives,” Mr. Trump declared of Mr. Weissmann earlier Friday on Twitter, citing Mr. Weissmann’s work as a prosecutor in the Enron case in the early 2000s. The government had a mixed record in that investigation, including a unanimous defeat at the Supreme Court.
The filing capped a busy week for Mr. Mueller’s team. His office also filed a recommendation on Friday for the sentencing of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, alongside a scathing attack from prosecutors in Manhattan who rejected Mr. Cohen’s request to avoid a prison term and accused him of using his power and influence “for deceptive ends.”
The prosecutors sought about four years in prison for Mr. Cohen when he is sentenced next week for lying to Congress about the extent of Mr. Trump’s business dealings in Moscow, as well as for campaign finance violations and other charges.The prosecutors sought about four years in prison for Mr. Cohen when he is sentenced next week for lying to Congress about the extent of Mr. Trump’s business dealings in Moscow, as well as for campaign finance violations and other charges.
Once Mr. Trump’s highly trusted aide, Mr. Cohen has met seven times with prosecutors for the special counsel who are investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether anyone tied to the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin-run operation. He also assisted federal prosecutors in New York in an inquiry that focuses on payments to cover up a potential sex scandal that could have ruined Mr. Trump’s chances of becoming president. Mr. Manafort, 69, had hoped that prosecutors would help him convince a federal judge that he merited a lighter punishment in return for his cooperation. Instead, it appears his alleged lies could damage of chances of a lighter sentence.
Mr. Trump, who routinely attacks the special counsel’s investigation, continued Friday to try to undermine public trust in the prosecutors. In a series of Twitter messages, he derided Mr. Mueller as a friend of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director who said the president fired him in May 2017 after demanding “loyalty.” Convicted by a Northern Virginia jury in August of eight counts of financial fraud and facing a second trial on more felony charges, he agreed in September to plead guilty to two additional felonies and to cooperate with the special counsel. He met with the special counsel’s office at least a dozen times before they declared that he had violated his plea deal.
Mr. Trump also claimed that Andrew Weissmann, a senior prosecutor on Mr. Mueller’s team, had “wrongly destroyed people’s lives” and is “doing the same thing to people now.” The special counsel’s prosecutors also accused Mr. Manafort of lying about a $125,000 wire transfer of funds, making “several inconsistent statements to government about the payment.” According to prosecutors, Mr. Manafort lied about who paid him the money.
Asked why the president was so upset about the special counsel, Roger J. Stone Jr., a friend and fellow critic of Mr. Mueller, said it had dawned on Mr. Trump that the inquiry is not going away, his lawyers’ promises notwithstanding. “He has finally figured out that this is about him,” he said. “I think he has finally woken up.” Though he worked for the Trump campaign for free, Mr. Manafort was in deep financial trouble. He had lived in luxury for years thanks to the largess of pro-Russian politicians and oligarchs in Ukraine who hired him as a political consultant. But the spigot of funds dried up when the Ukrainian government changed hands in 2014, and Mr. Manafort was confronted not only with an empty client roster, but rising legal bills as federal investigators began investigating allegations of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to register as foreign agent with the Justice Department.
Spurred on by the White House, House Republican lawmakers grilled Mr. Comey on Friday on what they claim is a pattern of abuse of power by the F.B.I. Mr. Comey reluctantly agreed to testify behind closed doors after the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform Committees agreed to later release a public transcript of his testimony. [Inside the rise and fall of Paul Manafort: greed, deception and ego.]
The developments capped a busy week for Mr. Mueller’s team. On Tuesday, his prosecutors disclosed that Michael T. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, had provided substantial assistance with several investigations. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty last year to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. Prosecutors have previously accused the Russian they say Mr. Manafort was in touch with, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, of ties to Russian intelligence. A Russian Army-trained linguist, Mr. Kilimnik served as Mr. Manafort’s right-hand man in Ukraine for more than a decade, working on behalf of the country’s Russia-aligned former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, his party and the oligarchs behind it.
They took a harsher approach with other defendants, including George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide who was released Friday from a federal prison in Wisconsin after serving 14 days. After he pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the 2016 presidential race, prosecutors asked a judge to sentence him to prison, saying he cooperated only grudgingly. In Friday’s filing, prosecutors blacked out much of the information related to Mr. Kilimnik but revealed that some of it had been uncovered in emails and testimony.
Caroline Polisi, his lawyer, wrote in an email that Mr. Papadopoulos is “doing well, and looking forward to moving on with his life.” Even after Mr. Yanukovych was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014, Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kilimnik remained in touch. After Mr. Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016, the two men traded emails discussing how to use Mr. Manafort’s position for financial gain. Mr. Kilimnik also traveled to the United States to meet with Mr. Manafort.
This year, prosecutors have claimed, Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kilimnik teamed up to try to persuade two witnesses to lie about the scope of the Ukraine work in order to protect Mr. Manafort. Both men were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, one of the felonies to which Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty in September.
A Russian citizen, Mr. Kilimnik now lives in Moscow. Because Russia does not typically extradite its citizens, he is not expected to ever face trial in the United States. In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Kilimnik denied that he had any connections to Russian intelligence. He described himself as “a random casualty because of my proximity to Paul,” referring to Mr. Manafort.