Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Tuesday presented evidence to support its allegation that Paul Manafort breached his plea deal by lying — a large focus of the special counsel’s investigation has been focused on the former Trump campaign chairman’s relationship with a Russian associate.
Prosecutors also have “documentary evidence” that Manafort lied when he said he had no direct or indirect contact with officials in the Trump administration, the lengthy court filing revealed.
However, the 31-page affidavit by an FBI agent with more than 400 exhibits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia are all heavily redacted and very little new information is revealed in it. Manafort took a plea deal in Washington in September, a day before the trial against him on charges related to foreign lobbying was set to begin jury selection.
The filing by the special counsel came in response to one by Manafort’s defense team earlier this month, in which the attorneys failed to properly redact their initial response to allegations from Mueller’s team. That filing showed Manafort, while serving as the campaign manager for President Trump’s campaign, shared political polling data with a business associate who also had ties to Russian intelligence: Konstantin Kilimnik.
It is unclear what data Manafort shared, but the failed redactions show he allegedly gave the information to Kilimnik, who has also been charged by the special counsel. It is unclear how Kilimnik, who is friends with Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladmir Putin, might have used the information.
The unredacted portion of Mueller’s filing shed little light on these matters.
After being found guilty in August on bank and tax fraud charges in Virginia, Manafort pleaded guilty to two charges in Washington in September and said he would “cooperate fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly” with the special counsel and any other government investigators.
Mueller shocked the political world when his team accused Manafort of violating the plea deal in November, claiming Manafort lied about “a variety of subject matters.” In December, the special counsel further detailed what prosecutors said were Manafort’s “multiple discernable lies.”
The affidavit by FBI agent Jeffrey Wieland, who was part of many proffer sessions with Manafort in September, October, and November, also reveals that Manafort gave “various accounts” of his communications with Kilimnik about an unknown issue “over the course of several interviews and in the grand jury.”
Manafort lied about a payment made toward a debt he owed to a firm that was working for him in 2017, the affidavit says after mentioning Manafort’s contact with Kilimnik.
Manafort gave multiple explanations for the $125,000 payment, which was made in June 2017, the filing reveals.
The “documentary evidence” about Manafort’s contacts with Trump administration officials includes a text sent on May 26, 2018, to an unnamed person, who asks: “If I see POTUS one on one next week am I ok to remind him of our relationship?”
Manafort responded by saying, “[y]es” and “[e]ven if not one on one.”
He was in communication with a senior administration official through February 2018, the affidavit says.
“Evidence demonstrates that Manafort had contacts, and tried to have contacts, through others, with the Administration,” the affidavit says, before saying that Manafort confirmed during a grand jury testimony something that appears to be related to those communications — but the rest is blacked out.
Richard Gates, Manafort’s business associate and former aide to the Trump campaign, also told Mueller’s team that in January 2017 Manafort told him he was “using intermediaries,” including an unnamed person, “to get appointed” in the Trump administration, the affidavit says.
Earlier Tuesday, Mueller’s team said Gates, who has also been charged by the special counsel, is still cooperating with the federal government as part of his plea deal and not ready to be sentenced.
Manafort also gave differing versions of events about an incident that is part of another Justice Department investigation.
“One version that was more incriminating was given prior to signing the plea agreement (on Sept. 13, 2018) and another that was more benign was made after on Oct. 5, 2018 after his plea deal,” the filing said. “When confronted with the inconsistency by the government and his own counsel, Manafort largely redacted the second version.”
Manafort has been in jail since June 2018, when the judge in Washington revoked his bond for allegations of witness tampering. He was first indicted in October 2017 in Washington, the first charges in Mueller’s Russia investigation.
