Paul Manafort’s day in court spells trouble for Trump

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s lies caught up with him in federal court on Wednesday. The result was a decision that likely means, absent either a deal or a presidential pardon, he’ll spend the rest of his life in jail.

The Post reports:

The judge’s finding that Manafort, 69, breached his cooperation deal with prosecutors by lying after his guilty plea could add years to his prison sentence and came after a set of sealed court hearings.

Manafort had denied intentionally lying after his plea deal, but U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District found he lied in three of five areas alleged by prosecutors. She said she would factor in his deception on other topics at sentencing March 13.

The subject matter of Manafort’s lies goes to the core of possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russians linked to Russian intelligence — in this case, Konstantin Kilimnik, who met with Manafort during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In particular, the court found that Manafort lied about his contacts with Kilimnik both during and after the election. Manafort was also found to have lied about “a payment that was routed through a pro-Trump political action committee to cover his legal bills, and about information relevant to another undisclosed investigation underway at the Justice Department.”

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