Special counsel claims Manafort violated plea agreement by lying
Paul Manafort/Mark Reinstein (Shutterstock.com).
The special counsel’s office says President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, lied to the FBI and the special counsel’s office after he pleaded guilty in September to reduced charges of conspiracy.
The lying violated the plea agreement, which required cooperation in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mueller’s office alleged in a joint status report filed Monday in Washington, D.C., federal court. The National Law Journal, Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Courthouse News Service have coverage.
Because Manafort breached the plea agreement, there is no reason to delay sentencing, prosecutors said. If U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III of Alexandria, Virginia, agrees that Manafort breached the deal, he would lose sentencing credit for cooperation, according to the Washington Post. Evidence of other crimes also could lead to an increase in his sentence.
Prosecutors also could decide to refile charges that were dropped as part of the plea deal, the articles report.
Manafort had been accused of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for the government of Ukraine and its former pro-Russian president. Manafort allegedly used offshore accounts to hide income from the representation, cheating the United States out of more than $15 million in taxes.
Prosecutors also had accused Manafort of using one of the offshore accounts to pay a law firm identified elsewhere as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to write a report about the trial of an opponent of the Ukrainian president.
The plea deal had called for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, to be to be served concurrently with a sentence in a separate Virginia case. Jurors in the Virginia case had convicted Manafort on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, while deadlocking on 10 other financial fraud and tax evasion charges.
Manafort’s lawyers said in the status report that their client “has provided truthful information and does not agree with the government’s characterization or that he has breached the agreement.”
Politico notes that Trump has the power to erase any federal prison sentence given to Manafort. But he can’t undo seizures of Manafort’s properties, lawyers told Politico.
Also on Monday, conservative author Jerome Corsi refused a deal offered by the special counsel’s office to plead guilty to a perjury count for allegedly lying about his conversations with Trump adviser Roger Stone about WikiLeaks. Corsi said he wouldn’t plead guilty because he didn’t intentionally mislead prosecutors.
