U.S. investigators examining money laundering accusations against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort hope to push him to cooperate with their probe into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia, two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team is examining Manafort's financial and real estate records in New York as well as his involvement in Ukrainian politics, the officials said.
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"If Mueller's team can threaten criminal charges against Manafort, they could use that as leverage to convince him to cooperate," said one of the sources.
Of course Manafort's spokesman was quick to put an end to that kind of speculation.
Manafort’s spokesman, Jason Maloni, said, “Paul Manafort is not a cooperating witness. Once again there is no truth to the disinformation put forth by anonymous sources and leakers.”
However if the Special Counsel builds a strong enough case against Manafort cooperation may be his only hope of avoiding substantial time in prison.
And Robert Muelller is known for building strong cases for prosecution.
And that may be why Trump's long time lawyer has now jumped ship.
Courtesy of The Hill:
President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, will no longer lead the legal team responding to the ongoing Russian investigations and has taken a reduced role, according to reports.
Ty Cobb will now take the lead in managing the team’s response to the ongoing federal probe into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Kasowitz, who has worked with Trump since the early 2000s, had represented the president in the Trump University fraud case.
The news comes a day after Trump’s legal team spokesman, Mark Corallo, resigned.
Sinking ship, rats fleeing, yep Manafort might really need to consider any deal that he might be able to make here.
Source http://ift.tt/2trDgfW
