Judge: Manafort case to go on
Leaks allegation made in bid to get fraud, tax charges tossed
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge in Virginia said Friday that he won’t dismiss bank-fraud and tax-evasion charges against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman based on allegations of leaks to the media.
Lawyers for Paul Manafort — whose trial is due to start in late July — said they may ask for his trial to be moved to another city after U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III made clear he wouldn’t throw out the case.
The effort by Manafort’s attorneys came after a series of setbacks in their attempts to have felony charges against him thrown out by two different judges.
Manafort is charged in Virginia with hiding tens of millions of dollars from the IRS that he earned advising pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine. He also faces charges in Washington and has been jailed pending trial.
Manafort’s attorneys had asked the judge to hold a hearing on media leaks, saying they could have prejudiced a jury against him. But Ellis said he wasn’t inclined to do so.
Still, contacts with the media came up in an unrelated matter earlier Friday when FBI special agent Jeff Pfeiffer testified that Justice Department officials met with reporters for The Associated Press in April 2017.
At that meeting, Pfeiffer said, one reporter discussed a storage unit kept by Manafort, which was later raided by federal agents.
In a statement, AP spokesman Lauren Easton said that AP journalists “met with representatives from the Department of Justice in an effort to get information on stories they were reporting, as reporters do. During the course of the meeting, they asked DOJ representatives about a storage locker belonging to Paul Manafort, without sharing its name or location.”
The meeting came about a month before the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
That investigation has led to the prosecution of Manafort on several financial charges, as well as allegations that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Ukrainian interests.
It’s unclear whether the meeting Pfeiffer referred to was the first time that the Justice Department officials learned about the storage unit. During his testimony, Pfeiffer said he learned of the unit either through his investigative efforts or through a meeting with the AP.
The agent testified that he had met g with the reporters with the expectation of receiving information, noting throughout the meeting Justice Department officials “generally” declined to answer the reporters’ questions or comments.
Under questioning from Manafort attorney Thomas Zehnle, Pfeiffer was asked about notes taken by officials in the room and turned over to Manafort’s defense Friday by the special counsel’s office.
According to portions of the notes read in court, one official said that AP reporters asked if they were “off base” in their reporting. One official responded that the reporters “appeared to have a good understanding of Manafort’s business dealings.”
Asked who was in the room, Pfeiffer said he didn’t recall the names of the reporters but listed the names of FBI agents and Justice Department officials, including Andrew Weissmann, who at the time headed the Justice Department’s fraud section. Weissmann later joined Mueller’s team and is one of the lead attorneys prosecuting Manafort.
Separately, Mueller on Friday said in a one-page filing that former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn is not ready to be sentenced yet, suggesting the former White House official is still cooperating with prosecutors.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about whether he discussed sanctions during the transition period with the Russian ambassador at the time. He has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
He has been awaiting sentencing, with guidelines calling for a range between zero to 6 months in prison.
But prosecutors with Mueller told a judge in a court filing Friday that they were not ready to set a sentencing hearing. The filing, done jointly with lawyers for Flynn, asks for permission to submit another status report by August 24.
That suggests prosecutors are continuing to work with Flynn to get information for their investigation.
The status stands in contrast to the case of George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser who also admitted lying to the FBI. He has been cooperating with Mueller as well, and prosecutors recently set a September sentencing date.
Another former Trump aide, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty in February and agreed to cooperate.