Mueller: Manafort Was Ghostwriting Op-Ed With Russian Colleague Last Week

Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, departs Federal District Court, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, departs Federal District Court, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The agreement that Paul Manafort and Special Counsel Robert Mueller had seemed to have come to on releasing him from home arrest has fallen apart due to what prosecutors described in court filings Monday as an op-ed Manafort was “ghostwriting” with a Russia-based colleague “regarding his political work for Ukraine.”

The colleague has been “assessed to have ties to a Russian intelligence service,” prosecutors said, and the writing of the op-ed was in violation of a prohibition the judge had put on the case banning the parties from communicating through the media.

They were drafting the op-ed “as late as November 30, 2017,” the prosecutors claimed.

Last week, Manafort’s attorneys filed a bail package proposal that indicated that they and Mueller had hashed out a deal, a month after Manafort turned himself him, on the terms of his release.

In Monday’s filing, Mueller’s team acknowledged that they had come to that agreement —albeit with a few more conditions that Manafort’s attorneys had not mentioned in their brief — but later that day “learned facts that are pertinent to the bail determination before the Court.”

Prosecutors indicated to the court that they wanted to file the op-ed draft in question under seal.

“Even if the ghostwritten op-ed were entirely accurate, fair, and balanced, it would be a violation of this Court’s November 8 Order if it had been published,” they said. “The editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public’s opinion of defendant Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication (much less for Manafort and his long-time associate to ghostwrite it in another’s name). It compounds the problem that the proposed piece is not a dispassionate recitation of the facts.”

Read the filing below:

Latest Muckraker

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for erik_t erik_t says:

    LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!

    (Because he won’t abide by an agreement he made with the lawful criminal justice system, not because he’s my political enemy)

  2. Avatar for zd123 zd123 says:

    Wow! Seems remarkably stupid on his part. What could he have hoped to gain? I would love to read what he was working on–hopefully Mueller has a copy.

  3. Weird huh?

  4. Back to the slammer

  5. Avatar for joebob joebob says:

    Manafort just earned himself an ankle bracelet. That ain’t gonna look good with your fancy suits Paul!

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

201 more replies

Participants

Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for pluckyinky Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for clunkertruck Avatar for clemmers Avatar for cervantes Avatar for squirreltown Avatar for teenlaqueefa Avatar for chelsea530 Avatar for joelopines Avatar for lastroth Avatar for serendipitoussomnambulist Avatar for fiftygigs Avatar for tena Avatar for texastwostep Avatar for junebug Avatar for jonney_5 Avatar for blogamator Avatar for spencersmom Avatar for dannydorko Avatar for maximus Avatar for gromilini Avatar for justruss Avatar for karlwlewis

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: