Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, a federal court judge has ruled.
Manafort’s deceptions leave him in breach of the cooperation deal he struck with prosecutors, and could add years to his prison sentence.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Prosecutors from Mueller’s office said Manafort’s lies about his contact with Kilimnik go “very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating”.
The Washington Post reports that Manafort also made “false statements that were material to another Justice Department investigation whose focus has not been described in public filings in Manafort’s case”.
Manafort will still be bound by what he agreed to as part of the plea deal he made with prosecutors. However Mueller’s office would be “free from its contractual obligations in the plea, like asking for a reduced sentence for him because of his cooperation”, says CNN.
Manafort is facing up to ten years in prison over two separate cases, which include his guilty plea in September 2018 on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States, violating lobbying laws and obstructing justice by witness tampering.
Judge Jackson said she is now considering whether Manafort will be eligible to serve both sentences consecutively, meaning the former Trump campaign chief, who is 69 years old, could face up to 20 years in prison.
-
James Van Der Beek obituary: fresh-faced Dawson’s Creek starIn The Spotlight Van Der Beek fronted one of the most successful teen dramas of the 90s – but his Dawson fame proved a double-edged sword
-
Is Andrew’s arrest the end for the monarchy?Today's Big Question The King has distanced the Royal Family from his disgraced brother but a ‘fit of revolutionary disgust’ could still wipe them out
-
Quiz of The Week: 14 – 20 FebruaryQuiz Have you been paying attention to The Week’s news?
-
Will increasing tensions with Iran boil over into war?Today’s Big Question President Donald Trump has recently been threatening the country
-
Corruption: The spy sheikh and the presidentFeature Trump is at the center of another scandal
-
Rubio boosts Orbán ahead of Hungary electionSpeed Read Far-right nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is facing a tough re-election fight after many years in power
-
Greenland’s capital becomes ground zero for the country’s diplomatic straitsIN THE SPOTLIGHT A flurry of new consular activity in Nuuk shows how important Greenland has become to Europeans’ anxiety about American imperialism
-
Epstein files topple law CEO, roil UK governmentSpeed Read Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the US, is caught up in the scandal
-
Iran and US prepare to meet after skirmishesSpeed Read The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East
-
Which way will Trump go on Iran?Today’s Big Question Diplomatic talks set to be held in Turkey on Friday, but failure to reach an agreement could have ‘terrible’ global ramifications
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
