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Manafort & Gates Indicted in Russia Probe; Trump Tweets ‘No Collusion’

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Paul Manafort, who for a short time was President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman last year, was charged Monday with conspiring against the U.S., money laundering and lying to the government as part of a wide-ranging lobbying effort for former Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort and a former business associate, Rick Gates, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. They were the first charges Mueller has made public in his five-month probe, although the allegations did not relate directly to the election.

In addition, Mueller disclosed that former Trump foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty October 5 to lying to federal agents in January about his contacts with people “he understood to have close connections to senior Russian government officials.”

Trump did not immediately comment on the Papadopoulos case, but in March 2016 described him as “an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described Papadopoulos as a “volunteer on the campaign” and a member of an advisory committee that met only once. She said the fact that Papadopoulos failed in efforts to set up a Trump meeting with Russian officials “shows what little role he had in the campaign.”

Trump discounted the Manafort indictment as irrelevant to the 2016 campaign and again said investigators’ focus ought to be on the challenger he defeated, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Both Manafort and Gates turned themselves in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington for processing and later were expected to appear in a federal court.

Mueller’s targeting of Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos marks a sharp turn of events in the Russia probe that has cast a shadow on the first year of Trump’s presidency.

Trump has repeatedly called the criminal and congressional probes into connections between his campaign and Russian interests a “witch hunt” used by Democrats to explain his election win over Clinton. But Mueller is a former director of the FBI and viewed in Washington by many as apolitical.

The indictment alleged that Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager from June to August last year and was a key figure in the campaign before then, enriched himself with his lobbying for Yanukovych before he was forced from power by a popular uprising in 2014 and fled to Russia.

Mueller alleged that Manafort hid his assets in accounts in Cyprus, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines and the Seychelles and then “spent millions of dollars in luxury goods” to “enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States.”

The indictment alleged that more than $75 million flowed through the offshore accounts, with Manafort laundering more than $18 million to buy property and goods in the U.S. and Gates sending more than $3 million to accounts he controlled.

Mueller charged that Manafort and Gates conspired to carry out the scheme between 2006 and this year, failed to register as foreign agents and then offered “false and misleading” statements to federal agents about their activities.

Manafort left Trump’s campaign more than a year ago when reports first surfaced about his Ukrainian connections. He was roused from his sleep in a pre-dawn raid on his home in suburban Washington in late July, as FBI agents carted off documents related to the investigation. Reports at the time said he was told then he would be indicted.

In addition to Mueller’s investigation, there are separate congressional probes into Russian meddling and possible links between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded in early 2017 that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed a campaign to undermine U.S. democracy and help Trump win.

Trump has insisted there was no collusion, including in a series of tweets Sunday in which he said Democrats and his election opponent Hillary Clinton are the ones who are guilty.

“The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s [Republicans] are now fighting back like never before,” Trump wrote. “There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!”

He further blamed the Russia investigations for taking attention away from Republican efforts on tax reform.

“Is this coincidental? NOT!” Trump said.

Ty Cobb, a member of Trump’s legal team, said in a statement that Trump’s comments were not related to the developments in Mueller’s investigation.

“Contrary to what many have suggested, the President’s comments today are unrelated to the activities of the Special Counsel, with whom he continues to cooperate,” Cobb said.

Mueller is also probing whether Trump obstructed justice when he fired then-FBI director James Comey in May, who was leading the agency’s Russia investigation before Mueller took over.

Trump said he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he decided to oust Comey, but within days Mueller was appointed, over Trump’s objections, to take over the probe. Trump said recently he had no intention to try to fire Mueller.

By: Walter Metuth

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