Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a business associate Rick Gates, have been indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts. Indictments included “conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts,” according to The Independent.
The indictment came from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose team is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any ties the Trump campaign may have had to Russian officials.
According to Mueller’s findings, Manafort and Gates allegedly moved money through hidden bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent, the Grenadines and the Seychelles. More than $75 million is alleged to have flowed through these offshore accounts, and Manafort is accused of laundering more than $18 million. These are the first charges resulting from
Mueller’s investigation. Both Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty, however, the charges they face are not directly related to possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. President Trump made his position on Mueller’s investigation a few hours after the news broke on Monday, in a tweet, stating “….Also, THERE IS NO COLLUSION! [sic]”
Former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who joined the Trump campaign in March 2016, is also facing criminal charges. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on Oct. 5 to accusations of lying to FBI agents about “contacts with people who claimed to have ties to top Russian officials,” according to Reuters.
Papadopoulos joins Manafort and Gates in being the target of the first charges against former Trump campaign officials after court documents were released on Monday regarding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s findings. According to these documents, in January 2016 Papadopoulos lied about communicating with Russian officials to arrange a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The documents also said that an unidentified campaign official told Papadopoulos around May 2016 that Trump himself “is not doing these trips…It should be someone low-level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”
Papadopoulos is alleged to have been dishonest about when he learned that Russia claimed to have information about Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, claiming that he had been in contact with an unnamed foreign professor before he joined the Trump campaign when evidence showed he met with the professor while he was working for the campaign.
Mueller’s documents showed that in one email between Papadopoulos and a
Russian woman with ties to senior Russian officials, the Russian woman told Papadopoulos that “the Russian Federation would love to welcome [Trump] once his candidature would be fully announced.”
