President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman is going to jail.<\/b>
\nFormer Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was jailed Friday after a federal judge revoked his house arrest over allegations of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The order by U. S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson adds to the already intense pressure on President Donald Trump’s former top campaign aide in the special counsel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign and the possible coordination with Trump aides.
Manafort, who is 69, now loses the relative freedom he enjoyed while preparing for two criminal trials, and he faces the possibility, if tried and convicted, of spending the rest of his life in prison. Still, it’s unclear if the move will push Manafort, who has mounted a vigorous defense, to cooperate with prosecutors.
Manafort witnessed several key episodes under investigation by Mueller’s team. But prosecutors have given no indication that they see his testimony as worth a plea deal given the amount of evidence \u2014 and other cooperators \u2014 they’ve amassed in the last year.
No one on the campaign, including Manafort, has been charged with a crime directly related to Russian attempts to sway the election.
On Friday, Trump criticized Jackson’s decision, even as he sought to distance himself from Manafort by saying the former chairman worked for other prominent Republicans and worked for his campaign for only \u00ab\u00a049 days or something? A very short period of time.\u00a0\u00bb In fact, Manafort served there for nearly five months.
Trump also tweeted with sarcasm that he \u00ab\u00a0didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob\u00a0\u00bb and asked, \u00ab\u00a0What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!\u00a0\u00bb The president referred incorrectly to Manafort’s pre-trial detention as a \u00ab\u00a0tough sentence.\u00a0\u00bb Manafort hasn’t been convicted of any crimes or sentenced.
In issuing her ruling, Jackson said she had struggled with the decision to jail Manafort while he awaits trial and considered alternatives.
But she couldn’t \u00ab\u00a0turn a blind eye\u00a0\u00bb to his conduct or ensure he would abide by her orders if he remained on house arrest.
\u00ab\u00a0You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,\u00a0\u00bb she said.
Jackson’s ruling came in response to an indictment handed up last week charging Manafort, and longtime associate Konstantin Kilimnik, with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, adding to the multiple felony counts he already faced.
Manafort pleaded not guilty to the latest indictment on Friday. Kilimnik, who prosecutors say lives in Russia, did not appear in court or respond to an email seeking comment Friday. Mueller’s team has said that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence agencies, a claim he has denied.
Prosecutors say the two men tried to get two witnesses to say that lobbying work on behalf of Ukraine and carried out by clandestinely paid former politicians occurred only in Europe and not the U. S., a contention the witnesses said they knew was false.
The distinction matters because unregistered foreign lobbying in the U. S. is a crime, while lobbying solely in Europe would be outside the special counsel’s jurisdiction.
Manafort’s attorneys have accused prosecutors of conjuring a \u00ab\u00a0sinister plot\u00a0\u00bb out of \u00ab\u00a0innocuous\u00a0\u00bb contacts. They filed a memo written by one of the witnesses for Manafort that his attorneys say shows the work of the group, known as the Hapsburg group, was European-focused.
In response, prosecutors filed additional documents showing extensive lobbying contacts by the group in the U. S., which they said showed \u00ab\u00a0the falsity of his representation.\u00a0\u00bb One document was a 2013 memo from Manafort to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. It described how Manafort had designed a program that used the Hapsburg members to lobby U. S. lawmakers and influence American public opinion including meetings on Capitol Hill.
On Friday, Manafort lawyer Richard Westling said his client had \u00ab\u00a0largely\u00a0\u00bb complied with Jackson’s orders. And he argued that Manafort could not have known the men he contacted were witnesses.
Westling did not propose adding any conditions to Manafort’s house arrest, only asking that the judge clarify whom he was or wasn’t allowed to contact. He also asked the judge to consider the burden it would place on Manafort to prepare for two criminal trials from jail.
Prosecutor Greg Andres said it was \u00ab\u00a0inconceivable\u00a0\u00bb that Manafort didn’t know the men were potential witnesses, noting that he had specifically reached out to them to discuss allegations made in an indictment against him.
Andres said Manafort had carried out a \u00ab\u00a0sustained campaign\u00a0\u00bb over five weeks to influence the witnesses’ testimony, which he said was part of Manafort’s \u00ab\u00a0history of deception in this case.\u00a0\u00bb
For example, he said, the government had discovered Manafort was trying to hide his communications by using a technique called \u00ab\u00a0foldering\u00a0\u00bb in which multiple people have access to the same email account and communicate by saving messages in a drafts folder rather than sending them.
Jackson said she was \u00ab\u00a0very troubled\u00a0\u00bb by Manafort’s contacts with witnesses. She also refused to lay out which witnesses were off-limits.
\u00ab\u00a0This is not middle school. I can’t take his cellphone,\u00a0\u00bb she said, noting that if she listed 56 witnesses, she couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t contact the 57th.
Manafort will remain in jail while he awaits trial in both Washington and Virginia over the next few months. He faces several felony charges \u2014 including tax evasion, bank fraud, money-laundering conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent \u2014 related to his Ukrainian political work, money he funneled through offshore accounts and loans he took out on property in the U. S.
___
Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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