Author: Sharon LaFraniere / Source: New York Times
Al Drago for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors told a judge this week that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, might have lied to them about “an extremely sensitive issue” in hopes of increasing the chances that he would be pardoned for his crimes, according to a transcript of the hearing unsealed Thursday.
The heavily redacted document leaves unclear what issue Mr. Manafort was being questioned about. Prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are accusing Mr. Manafort of lying to them repeatedly last year after he agreed to cooperate with their investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race and the Trump campaign in exchange for a possibly lighter sentence.
The discussion of whether Mr. Manafort could have been angling for a presidential pardon came during a closed session Monday in Federal District Court in Washington before Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Judge Jackson is exploring the prosecution’s claims that Mr. Manafort lied before she sentences Mr. Manafort for two felonies to which he pleaded guilty in her court.
During the hearing, the prosecutors also detailed how they believed Mr. Manafort deceived them about his contacts with Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a longtime business partner in Ukraine who prosecutors say has contacts with Russian intelligence.
One meeting between Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kilimnik in New York after Mr. Trump had won the Republican presidential nomination “goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating,” said Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor on Mr. Mueller’s team.
The prosecution’s statement about a potential pardon was misattributed in the transcript to a lawyer for Mr. Manafort, Richard Westling, but was actually made by Mr. Weissmann, according to a spokesman for the special counsel.
Mr. Weissmann said that Mr. Manafort could have been worried that if he spoke truthfully, it might have “negative consequences in terms of the other motive that Mr. Manafort could have, which is to at least augment his chances for a pardon.”
Another prosecutor, Greg D. Andres, told the judge that the special counsel’s office was concerned that Mr. Manafort was misleading them about his contacts with administration officials because at the same time Mr. Manafort was cooperating with the prosecutors, he was sharing information about the special counsel’s investigation.
Under a joint defense agreement among a number of people being scrutinized in the Mueller inquiry, one of Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, Kevin Downing, periodically briefed the president’s legal team on Mr. Manafort’s discussions with the prosecutors and F.B.I. agents.
“You see Mr. Manafort changing his story so as not to implicate” others, Mr. Andres told the judge. Mr. Weissmann said that in several instances, Mr. Manafort “went out of his way” to withhold evidence that could have been used against Mr. Kilimnik.
Mr. Manafort’s lawyers have…
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