A grand jury in Washington approved new charges against Paul Manafort on Friday, less than 24 hours after a grand jury in Virginia indicted him on 32-counts involving federal tax and bank fraud allegations as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
According to the superseding indictment, Manafort, with the help of longtime associate Rick Gates, “secretly retained a group of former senior European politicians to take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States.”
The group, managed by a former European chancellor, appeared to “be providing their independent assessments” of the Ukrainian governments’ actions, “when in fact they were paid lobbyists for Ukraine.”
“In 2012 and 2013, Manafort used at least four offshore accounts to wire more than 2 million euros to pay the group of former politicians,” the indictment alleges.
Manafort is now charged with conspiring against the U.S., conspiring to launder money, working as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, making false and misleading FARA statements, and making false statements.
The court papers were unsealed Friday, just hours after Gates pleaded guilty to two felony charges stemming from Mueller’s investigation and agreed to cooperate. The charges against Gates are not part of Friday’s new indictment against Manafort.
