June 13 (UPI) — A federal judge on Tuesday said special counsel Robert Mueller must reveal the names of people and organizations he believes acted as unregistered foreign agents in the case against Paul Manafort.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered Mueller’s team to give a list of the identities to Manafort’s lawyers by Friday. The unidentified agents — including former European politicians — allegedly acted at Manafort’s behest in a scheme to lobby on behalf of Ukraine. The judge also requested the identities of other people Manafort is accused of trying to influence, which led to new witness tampering charges last week.
Manafort’s lawyers sought the names in order to “prepare for a complex trial with a voluminous record within a relatively short amount of time.”
Manafort was scheduled to appear in court Friday after Mueller asked the judge to revoke the former Trump campaign chairman’s $10 million bail in response to the allegations of witness interference.
The new charges filed last week were added to an existing indictment leveled against Manafort in October in which he was accused of conspiracy, money laundering, tax fraud, failure to file reports of foreign financial assets, serving as an unregistered foreign agent and giving false and misleading statements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act along with business associate Rick Gates. The new indictment — out of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. — also names Russian citizen Konstantin Kilimnik.
Manafort pleaded not guilty to both indictments and a judge placed him on house arrest shortly after his arrest in October. He posted $10 million bond.
Manafort resigned as Trump’s campaign chairman in August 2016 after The New York Times reported a Ukrainian government corruption probe found Manafort received nearly $13 million off the books from a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party. In June 2017, when Manafort registered as a foreign agent after the fact, he reported making more than $17 million from the Party of Regions.
Manafort also was one of eight people in attendance at a meeting between Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer.
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