Paul Manafort Sent To Jail Before Trial, Judge Cites New Obstruction Charges And Revokes Bail

On Friday, a federal judge sent Paul Manafort — President Donald Trump‘s former campaign manager — to jail and revoked his bail citing new obstruction of justice charges.

Judge Sends Paul Manafort To Jail, Revokes Bail

Amy Berman Jackson, a U.S. District Judge, also cited a previous charge made against Manafort: that he had attempted to tamper with two witnesses against him after he had already been granted bail. The other charges against Trump’s former campaign chairman include making false statements and money laundering. According to The New York Times, Manafort had been permitted to post a $10 million bond and stay home while awaiting his trial in September for the aforementioned charges.

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Last week, a federal grand jury indicted Manafort, 69, and his longtime associate, Russian-Ukrainian Konstantin Kilimnik on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The pair have been accused of doing work as lobbyists for pro-Russia political parties and candidates in Ukraine. One of those candidates was reportedly Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych, who escaped to Russia in 2014 following an uprising. Prosecutors believe Kilimnik, a linguist trained by the Russian army, has ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

Manafort and Kilimnik reportedly tried to get the two witnesses to convince prosecutors that their lobbying efforts were limited to Europe and not the U.S. Federal authorities this week unveiled a four-page memo that Manafort wrote to Yanukovych describing his campaign in an attempt to convince U.S. lawmakers, the State Department and the American press that Yanukovych — who was elected in 2010 — “was a champion of democratic reforms,” according to the Times. 

Manafort allegedly laundered more than $30 million from income he earned over the course of nine years of working for Yanukovych and his political party. Manafort’s former son-in-law was also recently charged in a real estate case, and took a plea deal to cooperate with investigators.

Trump’s former campaign chairman is also facing federal charges related to financial misdeeds like tax evasion and bank fraud. His trial for those counts has been set for late July in Virginia.

All of the charges against Manafort are unrelated to his work with the Trump campaign in 2016, a job he only held for five months. He resigned from that post in August 2016 following reports of his work for pro-Russia parties in Ukraine. He was replaced by Kellyanne Conway. 

Manafort was first indicted in October.