WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort did not violate a court gag order when he helped edit an opinion piece about his political work in Ukraine, his defense lawyer Kevin Downing said in a court filing on Thursday. The filing comes after prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this week said they could no longer agree to more lenient bail terms for Manafort, after discovering he was working with a colleague tied to Russian intelligence agencies to ghost-write an opinion piece that cast his political work in a favorable light. Downing said in the Thursday filing that his client was only involved in editing the piece to ensure accuracy, and that it would not prejudice the case because it was ultimately published in a Ukrainian newspaper, not an American one. 
Manafort's work on draft op-ed does not violate gag order: defense lawyer