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New indictment accuses Manafort of paying European politicians
Ex-Trump campaign aide Gates pleads guilty and is cooperating with Mueller investigation
New indictment accuses Manafort of paying European politicians
Washington (CNN)New charges were filed late Friday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in the special counsel investigation.
Prosecutors
allege that Manafort, with the assistance of longtime business partner
Rick Gates, "secretly retained a group of former senior European
politicians to take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by
lobbying in the United States."
The
new indictment came less than two hours after Gates pleaded guilty to
two criminal charges in federal court and pledged to cooperate with
special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia and the 2016
presidential election.
Prosecutors
say Manafort orchestrated a group of former European politicians,
called the "Hapsburg group," to pose as independent voices. Yet they
covertly pushed positions favorable to Ukraine as paid lobbyists.
Manafort used offshore accounts to pay the former politicians 2 million
euros.
Manafort also allegedly used
$4 million from an offshore account to fund a report on the trial of a
political opponent jailed by his clients. A lawyer involved in the
report -- Alex van der Zwaan -- pleaded guilty to lying to investigators
earlier this week.
The
new charges, which sweep up some information Gates has conceded to
investigators and other information in charges filed Thursday in
Virginia federal court, include money laundering, foreign lobbying
violations and making false statements.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocence.
Gates
admitted in a guilty plea Friday that he and Manafort had sent letters
to the Justice Department in November 2016 and last February that
falsely asserted they hadn't lobbied on behalf of Ukraine in the United
States. The federal investigation into their lobbying work began in
September 2016, about a month after Manafort left Trump's campaign.
The new indictment also removes Gates from the charges, and also removes several counts from the original October indictment.
In
total, Manafort now faces five federal criminal charges in Washington,
including money laundering and foreign lobbying violations, and 18
federal charges in Virginia, largely related to alleged bank fraud.
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