Manafort fights use of financial records at trial
WASHINGTON >> Having lost his fight to have the bankand tax-fraud case against him thrown out of federal court, Paul Manafort on Friday sought to have the financial records found in his condominium and storage unit tossed.
Those records were obtained through search warrants, partially released this week, that detail the extent to which the former lobbyist and Trump campaign chairman found himself in debt and dependent on money from pro-Russian interests. His attorneys are asking U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, who ruled that special counsel Robert Mueller’s case against Manafort can go to trial next month, to find that the searches were unconstitutional. An employee did not have authority to let agents into his storage unit and they were given too much leeway to seize items at his condo, he argued. FBI Special Agent Jeff Pfeiffer testified Friday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court that he “may have learned” about the storage unit from a meeting FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors held with reporters from The Associated Press in April 2017.
One reporter “mentioned the storage unit,” Pfeiffer said, and the agent got a grand jury subpoena for records related to the unit the next day. Manafort has pointed to that meeting as evidence that Andrew Weissmann, a member of Mueller’s team who at the time led the Justice Department’s criminal-fraud division, leaked information to the AP.
The AP ran a report the day after the meeting, revealing Manafort received at least $1.2 million in payments listed in a secret ledger detailing spending by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.