Special counsel Robert Mueller alleged Monday that former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort lied to investigators, violating his plea agreement, according to a court filing.
"After signing the plea agreement, Manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel's Office on a variety of subject matters, which constitute breaches of the agreement," prosecutors said in the document, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
"The questions presented dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry," said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's lawyers and a conservative radio host. Neither the specific questions nor the answers have yet been made public, and it remains unclear whether Mueller's team plans to send follow-up questions to Trump or request that he sit down for an in-person interview.
As the defendant has breached the plea agreement, there is no reason to delay his sentencing herein.
What this means is, that unloke Cohen Manafort aint no rat.
The sequence of events is related to the "Take Home Test" Trump just filled out:
Just about the only explanation for Manafort’s actions are that — as I suggested — Trump was happy to have Manafort serve as a mole in Mueller’s investigation.
But Mueller’s team appears to have no doubt that Manafort was lying to them. That means they didn’t really need his testimony, at all. It also means they had no need to keep secrets — they could keep giving Manafort the impression that he was pulling a fast one over the prosecutors, all while reporting misleading information to Trump that he could use to fill out his open book test. Which increases the likelihood that Trump just submitted sworn answers to those questions full of lies.
If Trump did this - he is unbelievably fucked. Mueller will now inform the judge of precisely what Manafort lied about as part of his sentencing. This is a requirement of criminal procedure, and it will all be in the public record. Whitaker cannot do anything to suppress it, as he otherwise would with anything else related to Trump, under the argument sitting presidents cannot be indicted. If these lies were replicated in Trump's written responses….that's ballgame. It's very, very difficult to perjure yourself on a take home test answered with a team of lawyers, but Trump just might have pulled it off.