Giuliani: Manafort's lawyers briefed Trump's legal team on meetings with Mueller

Kevin Downing. — (Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

After President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in September, his attorney continued to brief Trump's lawyers on Manafort's discussions with investigators, Rudy Giuliani and two other people familiar with the matter told The New York Times on Tuesday.

Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, told the Times that the information passed along gave Trump's legal team insight into where the Mueller probe was headed; one tidbit Manafort's lawyer Kevin Downing told Giuliani is that prosecutors asked Manafort repeatedly about whether Trump knew about the meeting Donald Trump Jr. had at Trump Tower in June 2016 with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.

On Monday, prosecutors said in a court filing that Manafort had breached his plea agreement and lied multiple times to investigators and FBI agents. Experts told the Times they believe Manafort was likely trying to secure a presidential pardon while at the same time get a lighter sentence. Speaking to the Trump legal team did not violate any laws, but it did fracture the relationship between Mueller's team and Manafort's attorneys, the Times reports.

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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.