Ex-Trump campaign chairman surrenders to FBI

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a former business associate, Rick Gates, surrendered to federal authorities yesterday in the first charges stemming from the special investigation into possible ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.

Manafort and Gates surrendered to federal authorities in Washington, and were expected in court later yesterday to face charges, according to one person familiar with the investigation.

A second person said that Gates had worked out an arrangement to turn himself in yesterday. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss an ongoing federal probe on the record. The charges, which have not been made public, are the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential co-ordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. The New York Times first reported that Gates and Manafort were surrendering yesterday. The White House declined to comment.

Mueller was appointed as special counsel in May to lead the justice department’s investigation into whether the Kremlin worked with associates of the Trump campaign to tip last year’s presidential election.

The appointment came one week after the firing of James Comey, who as FBI director led the investigation, and also followed the recusal months earlier of Attorney-General Jeff Sessions from the probe.

Investigators have focused on associates including Manafort, whose home was raided in July by agents searching for tax and international banking records, and ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February after White House officials said he had misled them about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US.

Manafort joined Trump’s campaign in March last year but Trump pushed him out in August amid a steady stream of negative headlines about Manafort’s foreign consulting work. – AP