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WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, had breached his plea agreement by lying multiple times to prosecutors after pledging to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The decision by Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court in Washington may affect the severity of punishment that awaits Mr. Manafort. Judge Jackson is scheduled to sentence him next month on two conspiracy counts, and he is also awaiting sentencing for eight other counts in a related fraud case.
After Mr. Manafort agreed in September to cooperate with the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, the judge found, he lied about his contacts with a Russian associate during the campaign and after the election. Prosecutors claim that the associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, has ties to Russian intelligence, and have been investigating whether he was involved in Russia’s covert campaign to influence the election results.
The judge also found that Mr. Manafort had lied about a payment that was routed through a pro-Trump political action committee to cover his legal bills, and about information relevant to another undisclosed investigation underway at the Justice Department.
Mr. Manafort joins a string of former Trump aides who have been found to have lied to federal investigators about their involvement with Russians or their intermediaries, including Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser; George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser; and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer and lawyer.
Judge Jackson decided that prosecutors failed to prove that Mr. Manafort, 69, had deceived them about two other matters: Mr. Kilimnik’s role in a conspiracy with Mr. Manafort to obstruct justice, and whether Mr. Manafort had been in contact with Trump administration officials.
Although the defense won on those points, the judge’s split decision bodes poorly for Mr. Manafort. The ruling decreases any chance that Judge Jackson will show Mr. Manafort leniency, although legal experts have said that sentencing guidelines already made that highly unlikely. It could also affect the severity of his punishment in a case tried in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., over the summer. He was convicted by a jury there in August for tax…
