WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A judge on Friday sent longtime Republican political operator and businessman Paul Manafort to jail pending trial after a charge of witness tampering, the latest episode in a slow fall from grace of a man who was President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016. Two weeks after special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors dropped new accusations of witness tampering on him, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday revoked Manafort's bail, which had allowed him to live in his Alexandria, Virginia, apartment under house arrest. Manafort's lawyer Richard Westling argued that Manafort had no way to know Friedman would be a witness in the case. He also said in an interview that Mr. Trump should not pardon anyone while the special counsel inquiry is still going on, but “when the investigation is concluded, he’s kind of on his own, right?”

Judge Jackson’s decision that Mr. Manafort could not be trusted to abide by the law unless he was behind bars makes it harder for the White House to dismiss the case against him as the work of overzealous prosecutors.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has his bail revoked for allegedly tampering with witnesses, and is sent to jail to await his trial for foreign lobbying charges.