LEGAL/PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election as part of a plea deal, prosecutors said on Friday [9-14-18]. Manafort, 69, pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to two criminal counts, becoming the most prominent former Trump campaign official to strike a plea deal in Mueller’s investigation. Trump has denied any collusion with Russian officials by his campaign and has long denounced the investigation as a political witch hunt. Moscow denies U.S. intelligence agency allegations that it interfered in the political process…Mueller told Trump’s attorneys in March he was continuing to investigate the Republican president but did not consider him a criminal target “at this point,” the Washington Post reported in early April.”
–Reuters Staff, “Factbox: People Indicted, Convicted, Investigated in Trump-Russia Probe,” The New York Times online, September 14, 2018