Mueller accuses Paul Manafort of lying about his contact with Trump administration officials

“The evidence demonstrates that Manafort lied about his contacts,” the prosecutors wrote. “The evidence demonstrates that Manafort had contacts with Administration officials.”

In September, Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including making false statements about lobbying work he did for the government of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and filing false reports to conceal money he made from those efforts. Manafort also admitted to obstructing justice by attempting to influence witness testimony in his case.

As part of his plea deal, Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s probe into whether Trump’s campaign cooperated with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. However, late last month, Mueller announced that Manafort had violated the terms of that deal. Friday’s filing was submitted to back up prosecutors’ assertion Manafort breached the plea agreement.

The revelation of contacts between Manafort and serving administration officials appears to undercut past statements by the president and his administration that sought to put distance between the White House and the prosecution of Manafort and Gates.  

“It doesn’t have anything to do with us,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said at a press briefing after Manafort’s first indictment.

Sanders made a similar argument in a statement responding to the court filings on Friday evening.

“The government’s filing in Mr. Manafort’s case says absolutely nothing about the president. It says even less about collusion, and is devoted almost entirely to lobbying-related issues. Once again, the media is trying to create a story where there isn’t one,” Sanders said.

Despite Sanders’s statements, the documents included a section extensively detailing Manafort’s contacts with the Trump administration.

According to prosecutors, Manafort initially attempted to claim he was not in touch with Trump’s officials.

“After signing the plea agreement,” they wrote, “Manafort stated he had no direct or indirect communications with anyone in the Administration while they were in the Administration and that he never asked anyone to try to communicate a message to anyone in the Administration on any subject matter. Manafort stated that he spoke with certain individuals before they worked for the Administration or after they left the Administration.”

However, the investigators’ surveillance and a cooperating witness contradicted those claims, according to Mueller’s team. Their filing revealed evidence of administration contacts in May 2018 derived from Manafort’s text messages. It also said the testimony of “another Manafort colleague” included claims Manafort talked about being in touch with the administration through February 2018. Other evidence about Manafort’s contacts with the administration was gathered from “a review of documents recovered from a search of Manafort’s electronic documents.”

Rick Gates, Manafort’s long-time business partner who also worked on Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in February 2018.

This section of the filing revealed Mueller is examining a back channel between people working for the president and Trump’s indicted campaign chairman, a new area of inquiry that was not previously known.

The filing, which was heavily redacted, also listed additional lies that prosecutors say Manafort told them. In its most-blacked-out section, prosecutors detail a series of misrepresentations by Manafort regarding “the fact and frequency” of his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort associate who now lives in Russia. Mueller’s team has previously described Kilimnik as having links to the Kremlin’s military intelligence agency.

In the unredacted excerpts, prosecutors described lies Manafort told about Kilimnik’s efforts to interfere with witnesses who might testify against Manafort, a $125,000 payment and matters pertinent to a mysterious investigation being conducted by other Justice Department personnel.