Manafort will cooperate with Mueller as part of guilty plea, prosecutor says

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is pleading guilty Friday to two criminal charges Friday, under terms of a plea deal that includes his cooperation as a potential witness for special counsel Robert Mueller.

The decision by Manafort to provide evidence in exchange for leniency on sentencing is a stunning development in the long-running probe into whether any Trump associates may have conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

"I plead guilty," Manafort told U.S. District Court judge Amy Berman Jackson, who accepted his plea.

Kevin Downing, an attorney for Manafort, gave a brief statement outside the courthouse after the plea hearing. "He wanted to make sure his family remained safe and live a good life," Downing said of Manafort. "He has accepted responsibility."

When asked if the deal with Mueller's team is a full cooperation agreement, Downing replied "it is." He did not respond to questions about whether Manafort has been interviewed by Mueller's team or if Manafort's defense team remains in a joint defense agreement with Trump's attorneys.

Manafort's defenders have long insisted that he would not cooperate with Mueller, and didn't know any incriminating information against the president.

Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said at the beginning of Friday's plea hearing that Manafort has agreed to cooperate with investigators, saying the 17-page plea document included the terms of Manafort's expected cooperation.

Jackson noted Manafort has agreed to cooperate "fully and truthfully" with the investigation conducted by the Office of Special Counsel, including participating in interviews and debriefings, producing any documents in his control, testifying, and agreeing to delay sentencing until a time set by government.

Manafort also waived his right to have counsel present for every debriefing or interview.

Under the terms of the deal, Manafort faces a possible maximum prison sentence of about 10 years, though that doesn't include any likely sentence for his conviction last month in Virginia. His attorneys may seek a lower sentence, and prosecutors did not agree to recommend any sentence. The judge made no mention of any offer by prosecutors for a letter recommending leniency in case of substantial cooperation.

Before Manafort pleaded guilty, Weissmann gave a 40-minute description of the criminal conduct in the case.

"I believe it's fair to say that's probably the longest and most detailed summary that ever preceded this question, but is what the prosecutor said a true and accurate description of what you did in this case," Jackson asked Manafort.

"I did. It is," Manafort, said, resting both hands on the lectern before him and flanked by his attorney, Richard Westling.

The deal will short-circuit Manafort's trial scheduled for later this month.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a brief statement following the announcement. "This had absolutely nothing to do with the President or his victorious 2016 Presidential campaign," she said. "It is totally unrelated."

The president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said "once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign. The reason: the president did nothing wrong."

A criminal information - a legal document filed by prosecutors to detail the criminal conduct to be admitted by the defendant - was filed in advance of the plea. The document shows Manafort intends to plead guilty to two crimes of the seven he faced at trial: conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct justice.

The document indicates he will admit to funneling millions of dollars in payments into offshore accounts to conceal his income from the Internal Revenue Service. "Manafort cheated the United States out of over $15 million in taxes," the document states.

The filing also offers new details about the various ways in which Manafort sought to surreptitiously lobby the U.S. government and influence American public opinion toward Ukraine.

In 2012, Manafort set out to help his client, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, by tarnishing the reputation of Yanukovych's political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, according to the document.

"Manafort stated that '[m]y goal is to plant some stink on Tymo'," according to the document. At the time he made that statement, he was trying to get U.S. news outlets to print stories that Tymoshenko had paid for the murder of a Ukrainian official, according to the criminal information.

The document also says Manafort "orchestrated a scheme to have, as he wrote in a contemporaneous communication, '[O]bama jews' put pressure on the administration to disavow Tymoshenko and support Yanukovych," the document said.

Manafort set out to spread stories in the U.S. that a senior American Cabinet official "was supporting anti-Semitism because the official supported Tymoshenko," according to the document. "At one point, Manafort wrote to an associate, "I have someone pushing it on the NY Post. Bada bing bada boom." The document does not identify the then-Cabinet official and it wasn't immediately clear if any such story was published.

As part of his deal, the government plans to seize four properties, including a nearly $2 million house in Arlington, Virginia, owned by one of Manafort's daughters. The deal also calls for forfeiture of four financial accounts and a life insurance policy.

The move toward a guilty plea is another reversal for Manafort, who has fought vociferously - but unsuccessfully - against Mueller's probe. The 69-year-old political consultant was convicted last month in Alexandria federal court on charges of bank and tax fraud.

In-person jury selection for his Washington trial was set to start Monday, with opening statements scheduled for Sept. 24 before Jackson.

It caps a dramatic fall for the international power broker and confidant of Republican presidents dating to Ronald Reagan. Manafort's decision could be mixed news for Trump, who tapped the consultant to serve as his campaign chairman in June 2016 as he was securing the GOP presidential nomination.

Manafort's cooperation with Mueller could provide investigators new evidence or leads to chase; a guilty plea, however, would prevent weeks' worth of headlines about the trial in the month before congressional elections.

The longtime lobbyist resigned from his position as campaign chairman in August 2016 amid increasing scrutiny of his work on behalf of a Russia-friendly political party in Ukraine.

Over a 40-year career, Manafort redefined and expanded Washington's influence industry domestically and internationally, parlaying successful campaigns into lobbying opportunities. But by the mid-2000s, there were signs that his consulting career had slumped, and at times his finances appeared to be shaky. It was in Ukraine that he revived both - in ways prosecutors say violated the law.

Both cases brought against Manafort by the special counsel stem from his work in Ukraine. The jury in Virginia found that Manafort hid millions of dollars he made in Ukraine to avoid paying taxes and then lied to get loans when the political party that was paying him was ousted from power and the funding dried up.

In the trial scheduled in Washington, Manafort faces charges of conspiring against the United States, money laundering, failing to register as a lobbyist, making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice by trying to influence witnesses.

Manafort had the choice to consolidate both cases into one but declined. He had been jailed since June as a result of the witness-tampering charges.

He has yet to be sentenced in Virginia, where legal experts say he faces eight to 10 years in prison under federal guidelines on the eight of 18 counts on which he was convicted. A mistrial was declared on the remaining 10 charges after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict.

It is unclear how a guilty plea might alter his ultimate sentence, and some lawyers have questioned whether he is focused on winning a reprieve elsewhere. Law enforcement officials have come to suspect that Manafort hopes he will be pardoned by the president, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

Trump has sought advice from his attorneys on the possibility of pardoning Manafort and other aides accused of crimes, his attorney Rudy Giuliani previously told The Washington Post, and was counseled against pardoning anyone involved in the ongoing Mueller probe. The president agreed to wait at least until the investigation concludes, Giuliani has said.

Several defendants have cooperated or pleaded guilty in connection with the special counsel probe, including Manafort's former right-hand man Rick Gates; former national security adviser Michael Flynn; Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who worked with Manafort; W. Samuel Patten, who admitted arranging for a Ukrainian businessman to illegally donate to Trump's inauguration; and former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who was sentenced to 14 days in jail last week after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.

The decision by Trump's onetime personal lawyer Michael Cohen to plead guilty last month in a federal investigation in Manhattan particularly angered the president, who denounced him as a "flipper."

Earlier this year, Manafort derided Gates, his former business partner, for striking a deal with prosecutors that provided him leniency in exchange for testimony against his former partner.

"I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence," Manafort said in February.

Downing, one of Manafort's attorneys, also said this summer that there was "no chance" his client would flip and cooperate with prosecutors.

That posture drew plaudits from Trump, who praised his former campaign chairman for his unwillingness to cooperate with the special counsel.

Prosecutors "applied tremendous pressure on him and . . . he refused to 'break' - make up stories in order to get a 'deal,' " the president tweeted last month. "Such respect for a brave man!"

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Rosalind S. Helderman and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.