Paul Manafort Violated His Plea Deal by Lying to Investigators, Says Mueller's Office

In a court filing Monday, Robert Mueller’s office claimed Paul Manafort violated his plea agreement by lying to the FBI and federal prosecutors.

Not good…

According to the submission, 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.”

On September 14th — one day before he was to enter a D.C. courtroom on charges related to lobbying work for Ukraine’s government — the 69-year old former Trump campaign chairman avoided trial via the deal. Previously, Manafort had been convicted in Virginia of bank fraud and tax fraud related to his Ukraine endeavors.

The court filing doesn’t indicate how exactly Manafort lied, but attorneys for the Special Counsel have announced they’ll soon submit a detailed report.

Though Manafort’s lawyers argued against the claim of breach, they said there was no reason for sentencing for his Virginia conviction to be delayed. Attorney Kevin Downing explained:

“Manafort has provided information to the government in an effort to live up to his cooperation obligations. … He believes he has provided truthful information and does not agree with the government’s characterization or that he has breached the agreement.”

The office of the Special Counsel doesn’t agree, as per a November 11th Business Insider piece:

Since then, Manafort has met with prosecutors nearly a dozen times, and though members of Mueller’s team have been asking him about a wide range of topics, they’re “not getting what they want,” a source with knowledge of the discussions told ABC News.

No announcement’s been made on whether a D.C. trial looms.

Meanwhile, The Donald tweeted out what seemed to be a preemptive strike against Mueller’s pending report:

“When Mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble, will he be recommending action on all of the crimes of many kinds from those “on the other side”(whatever happened to Podesta?), and will he be putting in statements from hundreds of people closely involved with my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a Russian during this period? So many campaign workers, people inside from the beginning, ask me why they have not been called (they want to be). There was NO Collusion & Mueller knows it!”

When Mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble, will he be recommending action on all of the crimes of many kinds from those “on the other side”(whatever happened to Podesta?), and will he be putting in statements from…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018

….hundreds of people closely involved with my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a Russian during this period? So many campaign workers, people inside from the beginning, ask me why they have not been called (they want to be). There was NO Collusion & Mueller knows it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018

The Ballad of Robert Mueller seems to be a song that will never, ever, ever end (here, here, and here). But if it at any point does, I’m going to take myself out for a steak dinner. And celebrate the fact that I’ll never have to cover this most stuck-in-the-mud episode of American politics again. As for now, there’s surely much more to come.

Relevant RedState links in this article: here, here, and here.

See 3 more pieces from me: Trump throwing out Acosta, Gillum losing, and Stacey Abrams losing then not then losing then kind of not but losing.

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below. For iPhone instructions, see the bottom of this page.

If you have an iPhone and want to comment, select the box with the upward arrow at the bottom of your screen; swipe left and choose “Request Desktop Site.” You may have to do this several times before the page reloads. Scroll down to the red horizontal bar that says “Show Comments.”