A newly released transcript reveals that former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort continued working for a political client in Ukraine into 2018, after he had already been indicted in Robert Mueller's probe — and that prosecutors think Manafort may have told one lie to up his chances of a pardon. During a sealed hearing Monday, which was held to discuss Manafort's alleged lies to the special counsel, prosecutor Andrew Weissman referred to "2018 work that he did with respect to polling in Ukraine," according to the redacted transcript. Manafort was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., in October 2017. He and partner Rick Gates, who also worked for the Trump campaign, were charged with money laundering, bank fraud and conspiracy against the United States. After Manafort was convicted on federal charges in a related case in Virginia in 2018, he agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors on the D.C. charges, pleading guilty to conspiracy and witness tampering. As part of the deal, he agreed to cooperate with Mueller's team. He was interviewed by prosecutors for 12 days and testified before a grand jury for two days. In November 2018, Mueller's office said that Manafort had lied repeatedly to prosecutors and violated the plea agreement. The redacted transcript of the hearing released Thursday, which describes some of the alleged lies, is 143 pages long. The transcript indicates that Manafort lied about interactions with former colleague Gates in regard to what a prosecutor called "an extremely sensitive matter," the nature of which is redacted. The prosecutor told Judge Amy Berman Jackson that Manafort lied about what he had told Gates, and said Manafort lied because telling the truth would "have I think, negative consequences in terms of the other motive that Mr. Manafort could have, which is to at least augment his chances for a pardon." Only the president can pardon someone convicted of a federal crime. The transcript misidentifies the person speaking to the judge as a defense attorney, but the speaker is clearly a prosecutor, likely Weissman. Another alleged misstatement is related to Manafort's discussions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a person identified by the FBI as being associated with Russian intelligence. According to prosecutors, the discussions occurred on Aug. 2, 2016, while Manafort was Trump campaign chair, and continued through 2018. According to prosecutors, Manafort and Kilimnik had a discussion that referenced a "backdoor." The reference to a "backdoor" comes after the discussion of Manafort's work in the Ukraine, specifically work for a potential candidate there and polls Manafort had arranged. The details of the discussion are redacted, so the transcript does not make clear who the candidate was, what the polling was about, or what "backdoor" means. It does not say anything about the backdoor being related to the Trump campaign, Russia, or any of the hacking and interference efforts that occurred in the 2016 campaign. Weissman said the information showing Manafort's 2018 work in Ukraine had been "obtained, I think, after the Eastern District of Virginia trial" and was not shared with Manafort. The Virginia trial ended Aug. 21, 2018, with a guilty verdict on eight charges. Judge Jackson asked prosecutors why the Kilimnik discussions and his role in 2016 were important. Weissman responded, "This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think the motive here is." "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating. And in 2016. there is an in-person meeting with someone who the government has certainly proffered to this court in the past, is understood by the FBI, assessed to be — have a relationship with Russian intelligence, that there is REDACTED. And there is an in-person meeting at an unusual time for somebody who is the campaign chairman to be spending time, and to be doing it in person," Weissman said. At one point during the hearing, Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing made reference to a communication between Kilimnick and a person whose name is blacked about, apparently about repealing U.S. sanctions on Russia, according to the transcript. “There are documents that you were given regarding Mr. Kilimnik's communications with former REDACTED,” Downing said. “…this narrative of a REDACTED is nonsense because no matter who gets elected, that the sanctions were going to continue against Russia.” In fact, former State Department officials told NBC News in 2017 that the Trump administration had been gearing up to unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia. Amid the furor over the Mueller investigation, that hasn’t happened. The transcript also shows that Manafort attorney Richard Westling told the judge that his client was under significant strain when he decided to cooperate. He told Judge Jackson, "I think the situation that we want to be sure the court is aware of — we know that it is — is just the challenges of anyone who is, you know, facing some of the physical and emotional challenges Mr. Manafort was; the situation of his confinement, the focus, really for the last months before this, really on just the trial issues on the case, and then shifting, almost immediately, to: Let's open the world to everything you remember over the last several years, and well before that." Federal prosecutors countered by pointing out that the bulk of their questions had to do with the evidence they had already gathered and provided to Manafort prior to his trial in Virginia during the summer of 2018.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — An August 2016 meeting between President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and an associate with ties to Russian intelligence goes to the “heart” of the Russia investigation, according to a court transcript unsealed Thursday. The transcript from a sealed hearing in Paul Manafort’s case provides further insight into what special counsel Robert Mueller considers significant in his wide-ranging probe of the Kremlin’s efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election and the ties between Trump associates and Russia. It makes clear that prosecutors have honed in on the repeated contacts between Manafort and his longtime associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI says has ties to the Russia’s military intelligence agency. Still, it’s unclear what specifically has piqued prosecutors’ interests and whether it has any direct connection to any conspiracy related to election interference. The transcript of the hearing, which took place Monday, was released by court order Thursday but much of it was redacted to protect the ongoing investigation including several key portions about Manafort and Kilimnik. According to the transcript, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said the substance of the meeting, which took place in New York just weeks after the Republican National Convention, goes to the “larger view of what we think is going on” and what “we think the motive here is.” “This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel’s Office is investigating,” Weissmann said, noting Kilimnik’s past intelligence ties and Manafort’s position at the top of the Trump campaign at the time. “That meeting and what happened at that meeting is of significance to the special counsel,” he added later. Previously, Manafort’s attorneys accidentally revealed that among topics discussed by Manafort and Kilimnik during the election was a possible peace plan to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Crimea. They also disclosed that Manafort had shared polling data on the Trump campaign with Kilimnik. But it’s unclear if Weissmann was referencing those topics in his comments Monday. The transcript does reveal that Rick Gates, Manafort’s longtime protege who also served on the Trump campaign, attended the meeting. And prosecutors say Manafort and Gates took steps to conceal that they met with Kiliminik by taking the “precaution” of leaving separately. Gates also spoke to investigators about Manafort sharing the polling data, according to the transcript. The documents also shows that prosecutors remain interested in Manafort’s work after the campaign, including meetings he had with Kilimnik around Trump’s presidential inauguration and political work he performed for an unnamed Ukrainian. Those details were explored in Monday’s hearing because they are one of several topics that Mueller’s team says he lied about during interviews with investigators after he cut a plea deal. Manafort has denied intentionally making false statements. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson is now tasked with deciding whether Manafort’s statements constituted a breach of his plea agreement. A second sealed hearing on the matter is set for next week. Jackson’s ruling could affect Manafort’s sentencing on two felony charges stemming from illegal lobbying on behalf of Ukrainian interest. Manafort faces a separate sentencing in Virginia on tax and fraud charges. In that case, Manafort faces the possibility of a decade in prison.<doc-sep>Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team thinks Paul Manafort lied to them while he was supposedly cooperating with prosecutors in the Trump-Russia probe — and that Manafort may well have been trying to get Trump to pardon him. Mueller’s prosecutors made these arguments during a sealed hearing on Monday, February 4. A partially redacted transcript of that hearing has now been posted by CNN, and it reveals new details on the special counsel’s thinking. For instance: While chairing the Trump campaign, Manafort secretly met with his longtime Russian associate, Konstantin Kilimnik. Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said the FBI thinks Kilimnik “has a relationship with Russian intelligence.” So, he said, the meeting goes “very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel’s Office is investigating” — namely, the Trump campaign’s potential connections to the Russian government. Why would Manafort lie after agreeing to cooperate? Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann even brought up the elephant in the room — and said Manafort could be motivated to try and “augment his chances for a pardon.” Manafort’s attorneys argued that he didn’t deliberately lie, but rather there was a combination of memory failures and mix-ups from Manafort, and misunderstandings from the special counsel’s team. But the special counsel’s office didn’t buy it. “Probably most important was the number of instances” that this problem came up, Weissmann said. “What are the odds that all of this was a mistake?” How we got here To recap: Manafort was indicted by Mueller in two venues, Virginia and Washington, DC. He was charged with tax violations, bank fraud, lobbying, and false statements — but he was not charged with any crimes related to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Last August, Manafort was convicted at his first trial, in Virginia. Then, he struck a plea deal in DC to avert the second trial — and committed to cooperate with the government. Weissmann revealed in court that, though the government went into the deal “with good faith,” he could not say at that point whether Manafort “was being truthful” in his proffer or whether he’d be able to substantially assist the investigation. He added that there were two “unusual” factors in Manafort’s plea deal. First, Weissmann said, there was “enormous interest” in “the intelligence that could be gathered from having a cooperating witness in this particular investigation” — meaning the Trump-Russia probe. That is one reason why, he said, they agreed to let Manafort cooperate after one of his trials had already concluded. The second “unusual factor” is redacted: Here, Weissmann likely mentioned the possibility of Trump pardoning Manafort — something that could indeed greatly affect “the normal motives and incentives that are build into a cooperation agreement.” And in fact, later in the transcript, there is an unredacted reference to “a pardon” as one potential motivation Manafort could have. Manafort had three proffer sessions with Mueller’s team before he agreed to his plea deal, and nine further questioning sessions as well as two grand jury sessions afterward. But in November, the special counsel brought all this to a halt and told the court he believed Manafort had breached his cooperation commitment by lying. Now, both Mueller’s and Manafort’s lawyers already agree that the government has reason to believe Manafort breached his plea agreement. But now, Judge Amy Berman Jackson is considering whether to take these purported lies into account when she sentences Manafort. That was the reason for Monday’s hearing: to weigh the government’s case that the lies were deliberate, against the defense’s case that they were unintentional. In the dueling filings leading up to the new hearing, we’ve gradually learned more and more details on what, exactly, Mueller has accused Manafort of lying about. There are five different topics. 1) A $125,000 payment made toward Manafort’s legal bills In 2016, Manafort helped set up the pro-Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, and installed a longtime friend to run it. That super PAC paid millions to a political ad-buying firm — and that firm then used $125,000 to help pay Manafort’s legal bills in 2017. Prosecutors say that, while trying to assess Manafort’s financial assets and whether people were “holding money” for him, they asked him about this payment, and he gave three different stories about it. First, Manafort said it was the repayment of a loan he’d given to the super PAC chief. Second, he said it was a repayment for work he’d helped the head of the ad-buying firm get. Third, Manafort said it was a loan from the head of the ad-buying firm to him. So, what actually happened here? Weissmann explained his “educated guess” about what Manafort was trying to hide. The details are redacted, but he seems to be saying that the super PAC head and the ad-buying firm had a kickback “scheme” — and that the super PAC head “may have” had a similar arrangement with Manafort. But Weissmann said he wasn’t certain of this. Weissmann elaborated that Manafort worked for the Trump campaign unpaid, at the same time he seemed to have a “liquidity issue.” And that he might have had this as “a way of getting cash.” The translation is that prosecutors seem to think Manafort may have been skimming money from a supposedly independent, donor-funded super PAC he helped set up to support Trump. But they are not saying they’re certain this happened (and it’s also not clear it necessarily would have been criminal). In response, defense lawyer Richard Westling said he didn’t think Manafort’s story about the payment changed all that much, and that he doesn’t “think” the hypothetical kickback scheme actually occurred. 2) Conspiring with Kilimnik to witness tamper Back in June of last year, after Manafort had already been indicted twice by Mueller’s team, they piled on two more charges against him — and against a longtime business associate of his, Konstantin Kilimnik, who Mueller says has ties to Russian intelligence. One charge accused Manafort and Kilimnik of conspiring to obstruct justice, by encouraging witnesses to give a false story regarding their work for the former government of Ukraine. And when Manafort agreed to his plea deal with Mueller a few months later, he admitted this charge was true. However, Mueller’s team says that after the deal was struck, Manafort backtracked on this story and told them that Kilimnik did not knowingly commit a crime. After a discussion with his lawyers, though, Manafort reverted to the story he told during his plea deal. The motivation, Weissmann suggests, is that Manafort “went out of his way” to “not want to provide any evidence that could be used with respect to Mr. Kilimnik.” Defense lawyers claimed that there was a misunderstanding, that Manafort didn’t actually change his story, and that even if he did he corrected it in the very same cooperation session. 3) Manafort’s interactions with Kilimnik between 2016 and 2018 Mueller’s team also says Manafort repeatedly lied to them about a series of interactions he had with Kilimnik. Many of these details are hidden, but we know from a previous redaction error that much of this involves a supposed “peace plan” for Ukraine that Kilimnik was apparently pushing. This plan was aimed, it seems, at settling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on terms that would be favorable to Russia. Manafort originally told Mueller’s team that the peace plan only came up once between him and Kilimnik — at a meeting they had in New York City on August 2, 2016, while Manafort was chairing Trump’s campaign. Manafort said he rejected the idea. Weissmann argued that Manafort lied about his continuing contacts with Kilimnik. Far from dismissing the peace plan as a bad idea, he asserts, the evidence shows Manafort was in favor of it and continued to work with Kilimnik on it all the way up to early 2018. In a tantalizing statement, Weissmann told the judge the August 2016 meeting in particular “goes to the larger view of what we think is going on” and “goes to the heart of what the Special Counsel’s Office is investigating” — namely, the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.<doc-sep>
During the Monday hearing, prosecutors made clear that they viewed Paul Manafort’s interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian national, as important to Robert Mueller’s mission to investigate evidence of Russian influence on the 2016 presidential campaign. | Keith Lane/Getty Images mueller investigation Mueller: Manafort downplayed Russian associate’s conduct even after plea deal Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has accused Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, of continuing to try to minimize the conduct of an associate with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, even after Manafort agreed last year to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors, according to a newly released court transcript. The partially redacted transcript, of a lengthy hearing that took place behind closed doors on Monday, shows that Mueller’s team contended that when Manafort was debriefed by prosecutors and FBI agents, he seemed to be trying to avoid providing information that could be damaging to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian national who was deeply involved in Manafort’s political consulting work in Ukraine. “I think Mr. Manafort went out of his way in this instance … to not want to provide any evidence that could be used with respect to Mr. Kilimnik,” deputy special counsel Andrew Weissmann told U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson during the court session, which spanned more than four hours, including a lunch break. Prosecutors have accused Manafort of breaching his plea deal by repeatedly lying during debriefing sessions and during appearances before a grand jury late last year. Manafort’s attorneys say any misstatements were the result of confusion or foggy memory, rather than a deliberate effort to mislead. The closed-door hearing on Monday served as a forum for the attorneys to hash out the latest lying charges against Manafort ahead of his sentencing in federal court in Washington, which Jackson has scheduled for March 13. Additional briefs on the allegations against Manafort are due on Friday, and Jackson also has another sealed hearing scheduled for next Wednesday. Manafort pleaded guilty last September to conspiracy against the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct justice on the eve of his scheduled jury trial. He also faces sentencing in federal court in Alexandria, Va., stemming from his conviction last summer on bank and tax fraud charges, but Judge T.S. Ellis III has postponed a formal date for that hearing until the dispute over his lying to prosecutors is resolved. During the Monday hearing, prosecutors made clear that they viewed Manafort’s interactions with Kilimnik as important to Mueller’s mission to investigate evidence of Russian influence on the 2016 presidential campaign. “This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel’s Office is investigating,” Weissmann said in response to questions from Jackson about the relevance of some of Manafort’s alleged lies. The full context of the prosecutors’ complaints and Manafort’s responses is difficult to determine because of deletions from the transcript made public Thursday, but Mueller’s team appears intently focused on efforts during the campaign and after to advance a peace plan aimed at resolving the conflict between Russia and Ukraine over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Some figures with longstanding ties to President Donald Trump also worked to advance the plan that Mueller is investigating, including Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, a real estate developer involved in efforts to develop a Trump Tower Moscow project. Weissmann said on Monday that prosecutors had particular doubts about Manafort’s statements about a meeting he held with Kilimnik on Aug. 2, 2016, at the Grand Havana Club in New York. Weissmann said it was surprising that Manafort would have held such a meeting given his many responsibilities running the Trump campaign. “There is an in-person meeting at an unusual time for somebody who is the campaign chairman to be spending time, and to be doing it in person,” Weissmann said. “That meeting and what happened at that meeting is of significance to the special counsel.” The transcript also reveals that Manafort and Rick Gates, his deputy and longtime colleague, used cloak-and-dagger tactics to avoid being seen with Kilimnik. Manafort and Gates left the cigar club separately from the Russian as a “precaution,” Weissmann said. Kilimnik was originally an unnamed co-conspirator in charges filed against Manafort in 2017. Last June, however, Mueller’s office obtained an expanded grand jury indictment charging Manafort and Kilimnik with witness tampering. One of the charges to which Manafort ultimately pleaded guilty was conspiring with Kilimnik to obstruct justice by tampering with the testimony of two witnesses.