1/15/2019

PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Paul Manafort, the convicted former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told a business associate in January 2017 he was using middlemen to get people appointed to the Trump administration, according to a court filing on Tuesday [1-15-19]. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had been given until Monday [1-14-19] by a federal court in Washington to provide evidence of his accusations that Manafort had lied to prosecutors on five subjects, which would put Manafort in breach of a plea agreement under which he was meant to be cooperating with Mueller’s probe. The heavily redacted 188-page filing included some new details about Manafort’s communications with Trump administration officials, which continued even after he left the campaign in August 2016 due to a scandal over cash payments related to his work for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine. In January 2017 Manafort told his former business partner Richard Gates that he was using intermediaries to ‘get people appointed in the Administration,’ according to the sworn statement of an FBI agent working for Mueller included in the filing.”

Reuters, “Manafort Claimed to Be Placing People in Trump Administration: Filing,” The New York Times online, January 15, 2019