Prosecutors: While under house arrest, Manafort worked on secret op-ed with Russian colleague

(Image credit: Getty Images)

last updated 5 December 2017

Documents filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Monday say that last week, President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was found to be working on an op-ed with a Russian colleague with ties to a Russian intelligence service.

Manafort was a ghostwriter on the op-ed, which detailed his work with Ukrainian politicians, and it's not clear where he wanted it published. The special counsel's brief said by drafting this op-ed, Manafort showed he was ready to "violate or circumvent" the court's order banning statements to the press. "The editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public's opinion of Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication (much less for Manafort and his long-time associate to ghostwrite it in another's name)," the special counsel wrote. "It compounds the problem that the proposed piece is not a dispassionate recitation of the facts."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

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.

Explore More

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox