Manafort tried to manipulate case, filing says
Prosecutors claim tampering with witnesses deserves jail
WASHINGTON — Prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday asked a federal judge to consider jailing former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort while he awaits trial, saying he made several attempts to tamper with witnesses in his ongoing criminal cases.
The request was filed on the same day that President Donald Trump asserted he has an “absolute right” to pardon himself of any federal crime but said he has no reason to do so because he has not engaged in any wrongdoing. Trump also lashed out at Mueller’s investigation, including questioning its constitutionality. In the court filing Monday, prosecutors wrote that Manafort and one of his associates “repeatedly” contacted two witnesses in an effort to influence their testimony. The contacts occurred earlier this year, shortly after a grand jury returned a new indictment against Manafort and while he was confined to his home under house arrest.
The filing marks the second time Mueller’s team has accused Manafort of violating a judge’s order in the case. Late last year, federal agents discovered that Manafort was attempting to ghostwrite an opinion piece in Ukraine even though he was under a gag order in the case.
In the latest court documents, prosecutors say that while he was under house arrest, Manafort and his associate attempted to get two witnesses to lie about the nature of lobbying and public relations work they carried out at Manafort’s direction on behalf of Ukraine.
Court documents do not name Manafort’s associate, but they refer to him as “Person A” and note the pseudonym is consistent with previous filings in the case. In earlier filings, Person A has referred to Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort associate whom prosecutors have said has ties to Russian intelligence.
Kilimnik, who has denied having connections to Russian intelligence agencies, was also involved in the ghostwritten oped matter.
Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said Monday evening that his client and his attorneys were reviewing the filing.
The two witnesses are not named in court filings. But prosecutors say they worked with Manafort in organizing a group of former European officials, known as the Hapsburg group, which promoted Ukrainian interests in Europe as well as the U.S.
The group’s work factors into an indictment against Manafort that accuses him of acting as an unregistered foreign agent by lobbying in the U.S. on behalf of Ukrainian interests. Prosecutors say Manafort directed the group’s work and secretly funneled about $2 million to it to take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the U.S.
Manafort has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded innocent. Several members of the Hapsburg group have previously denied the allegations.
According to the court filing, Manafort began messaging and calling one of the witnesses in February shortly after a federal grand jury in Washington returned a superseding indictment against him that included allegations of unregistered lobgGroup.
Manafort messaged and called one of the witnesses the day after his co-defendant and business partner, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty and continued reaching out over the next several days, according to a sworn affidavit filed by an FBI agent in the case.
In one call, the agent wrote, Manafort said he wanted to give the person a “heads-up about Hapsburg.” The individual then hung up “because he was concerned about the outreach,” according to the affidavit.
On Feb. 26, Manafort sent the person a series of messages through an encrypted application, including a link to a Business Insider story with the headline: “Former European leaders struggle to explain themselves after Mueller claims Paul Manafort paid them to lobby for Ukraine.” Another message said, “We should talk. I have made clear that they worked in Europe.”
The person told investigators that he interpreted Manafort’s efforts to reach him as a way to influence his potential statements, the agent wrote.
Court papers also accuse Person A of making several attempts to influence the witnesses’ testimony in February and later in April. That month, Person A wrote to one of the witnesses, “My friend P is looking for ways to connect to you to pass you several messages.” He then asked if that could be arranged.
The witness told federal agents that Manafort and Person A were also trying to get the witnesses to tell members of the Hapsburg group that if they were contacted by anyone, they should say the group only performed lobbying and public relations work in Europe. Both witnesses said that wasn’t true.
PARDON POWER
Mueller is investigating whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia during the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump took steps to shut down that investigation through actions including the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
In a tweet Monday morning, Trump claimed that the appointment of Mueller as special counsel was “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”
“Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!” Trump said.
Trump also called the investigation a “never ending Witch Hunt,” asserted that it was led by “13 Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others)” and predicted that it would continue through the midterm elections.
Mueller is a Republican, as is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee overseeing Mueller’s investigation.
Trump did not say in his tweets why he believes the Mueller probe is unconstitutional.
Trump also weighed in on the debate over whether he could pardon himself if charges were brought against him, arguing that he has that power.
“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?” Trump tweeted.
Trump’s assessment of his pardoning ability echoed that of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who offered an expansive view of the president’s executive powers during a series of interviews Sunday.
“He probably does,” Giuliani said Sunday, when asked on ABC’s This Week whether Trump has the ability to pardon himself. “He has no intention of pardoning himself, but he probably — not to say he can’t.”
Giuliani’s comments came less than 24 hours after the revelation Saturday that the president’s legal team argued in a confidential January letter to Mueller that Trump could not have obstructed an FBI probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election because, as president, he has total control over all federal investigations.
In the wake of Trump’s tweets Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters that “if I were president of the United States and I had a lawyer that told me I could pardon myself, I think I would hire a new lawyer.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, noted that constitutional scholars have reached varying conclusions on whether a president can pardon himself, but she added that were she advising Trump, she would urge him to “never say another word about Bob Mueller’s investigation until it’s complete.”
Trump’s assertion that “numerous legal scholars” believe he could pardon himself ignores the one official opinion on the subject. In August 1974, just days before President Richard Nixon resigned, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Mary Lawton, said in a memo that “it would seem” that Nixon could not pardon himself.
She wrote that such a pardon would appear to violate “the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.” But she did not explain how that principle would limit the constitutional power of the president to pardon.
Information for this article was contributed by Seung Min Kim, Erica Werner, Sean Sullivan, John Wagner, Ashley Parker, Joel Achenbach and Devlin Barrett of The Washington Post; by Michael D. Shear of The New York
Times; and by Eric Tucker, Jonathan Lemire, Catherine Lucey and Chad Day of The Associated Press.