Wow, did Paul Manafort ever lie to Mueller’s prosecutors. How much? This much…
Yesterday, the Office of Special Counsel answered a judge’s question about the extent of Paul Manafort’s dishonesty this way.
Prosecutors filed a 31-page affidavit from an FBI agent, plus another 406 nearly fully blacked-out exhibits, after a federal judge last week ordered them to lay out the “factual and evidentiary basis” for their claims that Manafort lied repeatedly after his plea deal and has breached his cooperation agreement.
The filing in federal court in Washington asserts that Manafort shifted answers to questions posed by the FBI and Mueller probe investigators, prompting his lawyers to pull him aside on several occasions to review statements.
Yes, we’d say 406 exhibits just might indicate a pattern of dishonesty on Manafort’s part. You can see the highly redacted document here.And the redactions indicate there is an ongoing criminal investigation that is far from wrapped up.
A few of the (partially) unredacted pages contain fascinating evidence:
a Word summary page for a document titled “New initiative for Peace” (sellout of the Ukraine, perhaps?) modified by Manafort (click to enlarge);
aext messages concerning what looks like an inter-bank wire transfer;
and a text message indicating that an associate of Manafort was talking to the White House in August 2018.
The handful of unredacted exhibits suggest the contents are, as one would expect, chronologically sequenced.
One of the biggest takeaways revealed by the filing is that Manafort was in communication with Russian agent Konstantin Kilimnik in August 2016 — mere weeks before he resigned as manager of celebrity real estate hustler Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.
The other is that despite the redaction of the vast majority of exhibits, some 500 pages of filing might just lead one to conclude that Manafort is a seriously committed criminal.
Developing…
