A judge ruled Wednesday that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort intentionally lied to investigators and a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s Russia probe. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was another loss for Manafort, who faces years in prison in two separate criminal cases stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
In her ruling Wednesday, Jackson provided few new details as she found there was sufficient evidence to say Manafort broke the terms of his plea agreement by lying about three of five matters that prosecutors had singled out. The judge found that Manafort did mislead the FBI, prosecutors and a federal grand jury about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, the co-defendant who the FBI says has ties to Russian intelligence. Prosecutors had accused Manafort of lying about several discussions the two men had including about a possible peace plan to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Crimea.
In addition to his interactions with Kilimnik, Judge Jackson found there was sufficient evidence that Manafort had lied about a payment to a law firm representing him and about an undisclosed Justice Department investigation.
Manafort’s sentencing is set for March 13. He faces up to five years in prison on two felony charges stemming from illegal lobbying; and separately he faces the possibility of a decade in prison in a federal case in Virginia where he was convicted last year of tax and bank fraud crimes.
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