Quincy News: Paul Manafort attempted to tamper with potential witnesses alleges Special Prosecutor

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Looking at time in stir awaiting trial?
A Brian Snyder/Reuters file photo
– News from elsewhere covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

Paul Manafort attempted to tamper with potential witnesses alleges Special Council Robert Mueller.

President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who has already been indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is now alleged to have attempted to tamper with potential witnesses per a court filing on Monday.

Heading into court yet again
A J. Scott Applewhite/AP file
Special Council Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, the judge overseeing the case in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to either revoke or revise an order releasing Manafort on bail ahead of his impending trial.

Special Prosecutor Mueller urged Judge Amy Berman Jackson to “promptly” schedule a hearing on the whether to change Manafort’s conditions of release, which could result in Manafort going to jail.

Stuck at home working on the Honey-do list?
An old photo
Manafort was released to home confinement after his arraignment in October in the wake of his arraignment on allegations ranging from money-laundering to failing to register as a foreign agent to bank to tax fraud.

Manafort has pleaded not guilty.

FBI Special Agent Brock Domin, in a declaration filed with Mueller’s motion, said Manafort had attempted to call, text and send encrypted messages in February to two people from “The Hapsburg Group,” a firm he worked with to promote the interests of Ukraine.

Untouchables tapped The Cloud
A Paramount Pictures image
The FBI has documents and statements from the two people, as well as telephone records and documents recovered through a search of Manafort’s iCloud account showing that Trump’s former campaign manager attempted proscribed by the court communication while he was out on bail.

The communications were “in an effort to influence their testimony and to otherwise conceal evidence,” asserted Special Agent Domin.

Manafort is the most senior member of Trump’s campaign to be indicted so far even if the charges filed against him (so far, ed.) do not relate to campaign activities.

Manafort’s Washington trial is set to start September Seventeenth of this year, with other trials on additional counts looking ever increasingly likely.