FBI hauls in Trump staffers
Two key players in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign have been charged with “conspiracy against the United States” and a third operative admitted to lying to the FBI.
TWO key players in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign have been charged with “conspiracy against the United States” and a third Trump campaign operative has admitted to lying to the FBI as the probe into Russian meddling in the US election claims its first scalps.
Mr Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and business associate Rick Gates will face 12 charges that include conspiracy against the US, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an “unregistered agent” of the Ukrainian government, making false and misleading statements to investigators, and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. Both men pleaded not guilty in court on Monday afternoon and were placed under house arrest.
The government asked for bail to be set at $10 million for Mr Manafort and $5 million for Mr Gates.
Investigators allege the two men were part of a secret “scheme” where they acted as foreign agents for a pro-Russian Ukrainian party, that they hid the $75 million they were paid and that they lied to authorities about it.
Meanwhile, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadoulos has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his relationships with Russian operatives, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years jail.
According to a court document, Mr Papadopoulos “lied to special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation … about the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials”.
Mr Papadopoulos made repeated efforts to set up a meeting overseas between Mr Trump and the Russians, but another campaign official stepped in to make sure that any meetings did not include the future president.
“We need someone to communicate that DT (Donald Trump) is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal,” an unnamed campaign official wrote in an email, according to court documents.
In response to the alleged conspiracy involving Mr Manafort, Mr Trump tweeted that the conduct happened before he was running his campaign. He then tried to turn attention towards Hillary Clinton and reports that her campaign helped to pay for the notorious dossier that alleged Mr Trump had close ties to Russia.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the revelations had “nothing to do with the President”.
“Most [of the alleged crimes] took place well before the campaign even existed,” she told reporters in Washington on Monday afternoon.
She said that Mr Papadopoulos had an “extremely limited”, volunteer role with the campaign and never acted in an “official capacity”..