Paul Manafort, Special Counsel Mueller
tussle over Ukrainian op-ed
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[December 08, 2017]
By Pavel Polityuk and Sarah N. Lynch
(Reuters) - President Donald Trump's former
campaign manager Paul Manafort did not violate a court gag order when he
helped edit an opinion piece about his political work in Ukraine, his
defense lawyer Kevin Downing argued in a court filing on Thursday.
A federal grand jury indicted Manafort and his business associate Rick
Gates in October as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation into accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election.
The charges against Manafort include conspiracy to launder money and
failing to register as a foreign agent working on behalf of former
pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's government, who was
ousted in 2014.
Thursday's filing came after prosecutors working for Mueller said
earlier this week that they no longer could agree to more lenient bail
terms for Manafort after discovering that he was working with a
colleague tied to Russian intelligence agencies on an opinion piece that
cast his work in a favorable light.

Mueller's office argued that his efforts to work behind the scenes on
the piece as recently as November 30 ran afoul of the judge's November 8
order instructing all parties to refrain from making statements to the
media or in public settings that could prejudice the case.
Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, declined to comment. Joshua
Stueve, a spokesman for Mueller, also declined to comment.
Downing said in Thursday's filing that his client was involved only in
editing the piece to ensure accuracy, and that it would not prejudice
the case because it was ultimately published in a Ukrainian newspaper,
not an American one.
"The defense did not, and does not, understand that the court meant to
impose a gag order precluding Mr. Manafort from addressing matters,
which do not 'pose a substantial
likelihood of material prejudice to this case,'" Downing wrote.
Earlier in the week, prosecutors said in a filing that they had reached
out to Manafort's lawyers when they discovered the draft and had been
assured that it would not be published.
The piece appeared online in the English-language Kyiv Post on Thursday.
The article, which was authored by Oleg Voloshyn, a former spokesman for
Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry, praised Manafort's political work in
helping Ukraine secure better relations with the European Union.
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Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for U.S. President Donald
Trump, departs after a bond hearing at U.S. District Court in
Washington, U.S., November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

"I can only wonder why some American media dare falsely claim that Paul
Manafort lobbied Russian interests in Ukraine," the piece said. "Without
his input Ukraine would not have had the command focus on reforms that
were required to be a nation candidate to the EU."
Brian Bonner, the chief editor at the Kyiv Post, told Reuters that the
article was submitted on Monday.
Bonner said Voloshyn claimed to have written the article and then sent
it to Manafort and the American's longtime Russian colleague, Konstantin
Kilimnik, for fact-checking before submission.
Bonner said he did not immediately publish the article because he was
suspicious of the contents and wanted to confirm that Voloshyn had
written it.
"It was blatantly pro-Manafort with an opinion about his activities that
most people don't share and that his record in Ukraine doesn't support,"
Bonner wrote in an email.
Voloshyn told Reuters he was not immediately in a position to comment.
It was not clear when U.S. District judge Amy Berman Jackson would
decide the issue, but Manafort and Gates are due to appear before her on
Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for a
status hearing.


(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Matthias Williams in Kiev, Nathan Layne
in Los Angeles and Karen Freifeld and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington,
D.C.; Editing by John Walcott, Toni Reinhold)
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