Tag: United States District Court for the Western District of Washington

Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 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. 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. But like transcripts of earlier hearings, it is likely to be heavily redacted to protect the secrecy of the special counsel’s inquiry. The prosecutors also told the judge that Mr. Manafort deceived them about transferring Trump campaign polling data to Mr. Kilimnik during the campaign. Mr. Manafort’s lawyers had suggested that Mr. Manafort had only wanted to share public data in the interest of promoting himself and maybe winning lucrative work overseas. He suggested that Mr. Manafort might have been trying to cover up the data transfer because it might hurt his chances of winning a presidential pardon for his crimes.