Mueller Investigation: Trump’s Former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort Colluding With Russian Whilst On Bail
President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort is currently on bail having been charged with a variety of offenses by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort and business associate Rick Gates were among the first to be charged as a result of Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s election campaign team and Russia. Manafort faces charges, including conspiring against the U.S., money laundering, and tax evasion. The charges relate to his business dealings in Russia and Ukraine.
Manafort, who led Donald Trump’s campaign team for five months, was placed under house arrest and electronic surveillance when he appeared in a Washington court five weeks ago. According to The Guardian, Manafort’s lawyers had returned to court to request that the conditions of Manafort’s bail be eased. Manafort had been viewed as a flight risk, but his lawyers were requesting a variation in his bail conditions and were offering multiple financial assets as surety “to assure he will appear as required.”
Manafort offered property and insurance policies valued at $12.5 million as surety, but the Mueller investigation lawyers oppose any variation in his bail conditions because they believe that Manafort is in breach of his current bail conditions. According to CNN, Manafort and his lawyers have been ordered to “refrain from making statements to the media or in public settings that pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case.”
Mueller investigation lawyers claim that Manafort is in breach of that order. They allege that Manafort has been colluding with a Russian colleague, who has ties to the Russian intelligence services, to ghostwrite an editorial about his political work in the Ukraine.
As reported by Business Insider, Mueller investigation prosecutors allege that Manafort’s editorial was “clearly undertaken to influence the public’s opinion of defendant Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication.” They also argue that Manafort’s actions “reflect an intention to violate or circumvent the court’s existing orders.”
Prosecutors allege that both Manafort and Gates are a flight risk because they have been in receipt of “millions of dollars” from Russian and Ukranian oligarchs that would allow them to “live comfortably abroad” should they attempt to flee justice in the United States.
The judge will make a decision on Manafort’s bail in a hearing scheduled for December 11.
