Reuters
- Justice Department veterans are flummoxed that lawyers representing Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s campaign, are still in touch with Trump’s lawyers following Manafort’s guilty plea.
- “It is absolutely not normal for a convicted felon and now cooperator to continue to loop in a potential target’s attorneys on the relationship with the prosecutor,” one former DOJ attorney said.
- There is no official guideline that bars lawyers for different sides of an investigation from communicating with one another, but such communications could severely undermine, or even tank, a cooperation deal.
- By staying in touch with Trump’s team while cooperating, experts said Manafort could be trying to keep all his options open, including angling for a potential presidential pardon.
As Paul Manafort dominates headlines this week, DOJ veterans say there’s one big question they want an answer to: Why is Manafort’s legal team still communicating with lawyers representing President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation?
Manafort, the former chairman of the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy and obstruction charges and has since been cooperating with the special counsel.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- Paul Manafort forcefully denies explosive report that he secretly met with Julian Assange at the height of the 2016 campaign
- Trump rips Mueller for ‘ruining lives’ of people ‘refusing to lie’ after Jerome Corsi says he will reject Mueller’s plea offer
- Paul Manafort’s plea agreement with the feds is in jeopardy as Mueller accuses him of lying to investigators
