A meeting with four Associated Press reporters in the spring of 2017 may have led the FBI to a Virginia storage unit belonging to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The unit was later raided by the bureau in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, an FBI agent testified Friday.
FBI Agent Jeff Pfeiffer, who was detailed to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in May 2017, was called to testify — the first live witness offered by the federal government — in federal court in Alexandria on Friday, amid an effort by Manafort’s defense team to have the trove of materials seized from the storage unit ruled as unusable by Mueller’s team.
Pfeiffer described an April 2017 meeting between AP reporters, officials from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and the FBI during the AP’s own investigation into Manafort’s business dealings.
Pfeiffer said the federal government responded, “Generally, no comment,” when asked by the reporters to confirm or deny what they had uncovered . Manafort’s lawyers and Trump allies in Congress have said the Mueller’s team has been leaking information to the news media.
Pfeiffer testified that after conducting his own investigations following the meeting with reporters, he compiled a list of names of associates of Manafort and chose one person in particular to start with: Alexander Trusko.
Trusko has been described in court filings and in court Friday as a “personal assistant” to Manafort. After Pfeiffer arrived at Trusko’s house in the suburbs of Virginia, the two drove to the storage locker in Alexandria.
It was there that Trusko, whose name is on the lease for the storage locker and has a key, signed an FBI document to let Pfeiffer in. The FBI agent observed a handful of boxes and a filing cabinet and took photos. Yet he testified he did not look at the contents of the locker and Trusko was not able to elaborate on what might be inside.
Pfeiffer then obtained a warrant within 24 hours from a magistrate judge, which was executed by the FBI and then thousands of business records of Manafort were seized.
The business records seized are part of the trial against Manafort in both Washington, D.C. and Virginia.
In Virginia, Manafort is accused of hiding foreign bank accounts, falsifying his income taxes and failing to report foreign bank accounts. He also faces charges of bank fraud not directly related to his work in Ukraine.
In D.C., Manafort faces charges of conspiracy to launder more than $30 million, making false statements, failing to follow lobbying disclosure laws, working as an unregistered foreign agent, and obstruction of justice.
The former Trump campaign chairman and well-known consultant was not in court Friday, he is incarcerated in a nearby jail. The judge overseeing the case in Washington revoked his bail this month after allegations he attempted to tamper with witnesses.
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled earlier this week that Mueller has the prosecutorial power to bring charges against Manafort, even though they do not relate to his work in the 2016 presidential campaign. The judge in Washington, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, has also refused to dismiss the case.
The rulings mean Manafort will be heading to trial in both cases on July 25 in Virignia and September 15 in Washington. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
