Federal prosecutors accused former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort of witness tampering late Monday in his tax and lobbying case and asked a federal judge to consider revoking or revising his release pending trial. In a late Monday filing in Washington, prosecutors accused Manafort and a longtime associate they previously linked to Russian intelligence of repeatedly contacting two members of a public-relations firm since February to secure false testimony about their collective work involving a group of former senior European politicians.
The group, informally called the “Hapsburg group,” was secretly retained in 2012 by Manafort to take positions favorable to Ukraine, for whom Manafort was working, prosecutors charged.
In court documents, including an affidavit by FBI agent Brock W. Domin, prosecutors with Special Counsel Robery S. Mueller III allege Manafort and his associate-- referred to only as Person A - tried to contact the two witnesses by phone and through an encrypted messaging program.
Manafort, 69, has been on home confinement pending trial.
Domin said that one of the public relations firm executives, identified as Person D1, told the government he “understood Manafort’s outreach to be an effort to ‘suborn perjury,’” and cause someone knowingly to tell a falsehood in the case by saying the group worked mainly in Europe and to minimize its U.S. work.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy, money laundering and bank and tax fraud charges in connection with his work for a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and political party. In a superseding indictment
In 2012 and 2013, according to the indictment, Manafort used offshore accounts to wire more than 2 million euros to pay the former politicians, who were described as independent actors instead of paid lobbyists.
Prosecutors also filed notice of the allegation in Manafort’s pending tax and bank fraud case in federal court in Alexandria, where Manafort is under under similar conditions of conditional home cinfinement.
Click for Full Text!
Poster Comment:
Not good for team DS45
Over / Under on days until PM cuts a deal and rolls over on the Degerante-IN- Chief....12
