Manafort told lies to Mueller’s team, federal judge finds

Under ruling, prosecutors no longer obligated to back reduced sentence

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, repeatedly lied to prosecutors after he agreed to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was another loss for Manafort, who faces years in prison in two separate criminal cases stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. It hurts Manafort’s chance of receiving a reduced sentence, though Jackson said she would decide the exact effect during his sentencing next month.

“The Office of Special Counsel is no longer bound by its obligations under the plea agreement, including its promise to support a reduction of the offense level,” Jackson wrote in her order.

The four-page order resolves a dispute that had provided new insight into how Mueller views Manafort’s actions as part of the special counsel’s broader investigation of Russian election interference and any possible

coordination with associates of Trump.

Prosecutors have made clear that they remain deeply interested in Manafort’s interactions with a man the FBI says has ties to Russian intelligence. But it’s unclear exactly what has drawn their attention and whether it directly relates to election interference, as much of the dispute has played out in secret court hearings and blacked-out court filings.

In her ruling Wednesday, Jackson provided few new details as she found that there was sufficient evidence to say Manafort broke the terms of his plea agreement by lying about three of five matters that prosecutors had singled out. The ruling was largely a rejection of the argument by Manafort’s attorneys that he hadn’t intentionally misled investigators but rather forgot some details until his memory was refreshed.

The judge found that Manafort did mislead the FBI, prosecutors and a federal grand jury about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, the co-defendant who the FBI says has ties to Russian intelligence. Prosecutors had accused Manafort

of lying about several discussions the two men had, including about a possible peace plan to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Crimea.

The special counsel’s office “has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant intentionally made multiple false statements to the FBI, [Mueller’s office] and the grand jury concerning matters that were material to the investigation,” Jackson wrote.

She specified that Manafort’s lies included “his interactions and communications with [Konstantin] Kilimnik.”

During a hearing last week, Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said one of Manafort and Kilimnik’s discussions — an Aug. 2, 2016, meeting at the Grand Havana Club cigar bar in New York — went to the “larger view of what we think is going on” and what “we think the motive here is.”

“This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel’s Office is investigating,” Weissmann said, according to a partially redacted transcript of the hearing. He added: “That meeting and what happened at that meeting is of significance to the special counsel.”

The meeting took place

less than two weeks after Trump had accepted his party’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention and about two weeks before Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign over questions about his work in Ukraine.

Rick Gates, Manafort’s deputy at the time, also attended the meeting. Gates initially was named in the same indictment as Manafort, but he later pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and lying to investigators, and he has been cooperating with prosecutors.

Prosecutors say the three men left separately so as not to draw attention to their meeting.

Weissmann said investigators were also interested in several other meetings between Kilimnik and Manafort, including when Kilimnik traveled to Washington for Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. And Manafort’s attorneys accidentally revealed weeks ago that prosecutors believe Manafort shared polling data with Kilimnik during the 2016 presidential campaign.

On Wednesday, Jackson found that in addition to the interactions with Kilimnik, there was sufficient evidence that Manafort had lied about a payment to a law firm representing him and about an undisclosed Justice Department investigation.

But she found there wasn’t enough evidence to back up two other allegations. The judge said prosecutors failed to show Manafort intentionally misled them about Kilimnik’s role in witness tampering or about Manafort’s contacts with the Trump administration in 2017 and 2018.

Kilimnik, who lives in Russia, was charged alongside Manafort with conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He has yet to appear in a U.S. court to face the charges.

Manafort’s sentencing is set for March 13. He faces up to five years in prison on two felony charges stemming from illegal lobbying he performed on behalf of Ukrainian political interests.

Separately, he faces the possibility of a decade in prison in a federal case in Virginia where he was convicted last year of tax- and bank-fraud crimes. Sentencing in that case was delayed pending Jackson’s ruling in the plea-deal dispute.