![]() Manafort is confident that he will be acquitted and violations of his constitutional rights will be remedied.” Manafort, once again, have nothing to do with Russia and 2016 election interference/collusion. Manafort’s spokesman, Jason Maloni, said in a statement that Manafort “is innocent of the allegations set out in the newly filed indictments and he is confident that he will be acquitted of all charges. They also hit Gates as the attorney who has been negotiating his plea deal with Mueller for more than a month takes over for Gates’ in-court legal team, and as another sealed criminal charge hangs over the case in Washington. The indictments show increasing pressure from Mueller on the former top Trump campaign officials and highlight his aggressive effort to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and any related matters uncovered during the investigation. In the 37-page indictment in Virginia, prosecutors describe a “scheme” in which the two longtime business partners allegedly laundered $30 million, failed to pay taxes for almost 10 years and used real estate they owned to fraudulently secure more than $20 million in loans. ![]() Manafort's lawyers have argued that the evidence suggesting he tampered with witnesses is thin.Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed new charges against former Donald Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. The indictment accused them of attempting to call, text and send encrypted messages starting in February to two people from a political discussion group - the so-called Hapsburg Group - that worked with Manafort to promote Ukraine's interests in a bid to sway their testimony. "Either he can double down in his resolve to fight it or it's the last straw and it breaks his will and he decides to work out a plea bargain," Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor, told Reuters.Ī June 8 indictment accused Manafort and an aide with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraine's former pro-Russian government. Legal experts say Mueller wants to keep applying pressure on Manafort to plead guilty and assist prosecutors with the probe. Manafort resigned in August 2016 following a news report he had received possibly illegal payments from Yanukovych's political party. The charges against him in Washington include failing to register as a foreign agent for the pro-Russia Ukrainian government under former President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort has ties to a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin. "When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons," Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told the New York Daily News on Friday. Trump has the power to pardon his former aide of any federal crimes preemptively, as then-President Gerald Ford did for his predecessor Richard Nixon in 1974. Manafort chaired the Republican's presidential campaign during the period when Trump, a former reality TV star, won his party's nomination. None of Manafort's charges refer to the allegations of Russian meddling and largely pre-date the two months he worked as Trump campaign head. Manafort is due to go on trial in Washington in September and faces another trial on related charges in Virginia in July. ![]() Moscow denies US intelligence agency allegations that it interfered in the election and Trump denies collusion. Mueller, whose investigation has overshadowed Trump's presidency, is looking into whether any Trump campaign associates coordinated with Russia and if Trump unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe.
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