Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors with Special Counsel Robert Mueller about matters close to the heart of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a federal judge ruled.
The judge's finding that Manafort, 69, breached his cooperation deal with prosecutors by lying after his guilty plea could add years to his prison sentence and came after a set of sealed court hearings.
Manafort had denied intentionally lying after his plea deal, but US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia found he lied in three of five areas alleged by prosecutors. She said she would factor in his deception on other topics at sentencing March 13.
The Special Counsel's office "has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant intentionally made multiple false statements to the FBI, [Mueller's office] and the grand jury concerning matters that were material to the investigation," Jackson wrote .
She specified Manafort's lies included "his interactions and communications with [Konstantin] Kilimnik," a longtime aide who the FBI assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence.
