Filing: Manafort lied about sharing data
Whether polling information was public not stated
WASHINGTON — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared polling data during the 2016 presidential campaign with a business associate accused of having ties to Russian intelligence, and prosecutors say he lied to them about it, according to a court filing Tuesday.
The allegation marks the first time that prosecutors have accused Trump’s chief campaign aide of sharing information related to the election with his Russian contacts.
Although the filing does not say whether the polling information was public or what was done with it, it raises the possibility that Russia might have used inside information from Trump’s Republican campaign as part of its effort to interfere with the election on Trump’s behalf.
The information was accidentally revealed in a defense filing that was meant to be redacted. The Associated Press was able to review the material because it wasn’t properly blacked out.
In its filing, the defense was trying to rebut allegations that Manafort intentionally lied to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team after agreeing to plead guilty last September. Prosecutors say Manafort breached their plea agreement by lying, but defense lawyers argued that any misstatements were simple mistakes made by a man coping with illness, exhaustion and extensive questioning from investigators.
Lawyers say Manafort suffers from depression and anxiety, has had little contact with his family and, on days when he met with investigators, was awakened before dawn to have hourslong interviews with little time to prepare for the questioning.
“These circumstances weighed heavily on Mr. Manafort’s state of mind and on his memory as he was questioned at length,” the lawyers wrote.
Tuesday’s filing revealed the first extensive details of what he is accused of having lied about. A spokesman for Manafort’s defense team declined to comment on the incomplete redactions or on Mueller’s allegations, but lawyers later filed a corrected version of the document.
The filing contains new details about Manafort’s connection to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian business associate who was indicted last year on charges he tampered with potential witnesses. The U.S. believes he is connected to Russian intelligence, but Kilimnik, who is not in U.S. custody, has denied those ties.
The latest allegations further detail how Manafort’s work on the campaign intersected with his past international work with Kilimnik.
Emails previously reported by the AP and other news outlets show that in July 2016, Manafort told Kilimnik he was willing to provide “private briefings” about the Trump campaign to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Manafort dangled the briefings as he was mired in a dispute with Deripaska over a multimillion-dollar deal involving a Ukrainian cable company.
Through his spokesman, Manafort has acknowledged discussing the briefings but said they never occurred.
The defense document acknowledges that Manafort conceded he had met with Kilimnik in Madrid only after being told that they had traveled to the city on the same day