FBI agents looking for financial documents have searched one of the homes of US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, whose past foreign political work has been swept into the investigations into Russian interference in last year’s US presidential election.
Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni on Wednesday confirmed the search, but he would not say when it occurred or what it was for.
“Mr Manafort has consistently cooperated with law enforcement and other serious inquiries and did so on this occasion as well,” Maloni said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
Reporters have learned that the warrant for the search on July 26 at Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, sought information, including tax documents and banking records.
The Washington Post first reported the raid.
Manafort has been a subject of a long-standing FBI investigation into his dealings in Ukraine and work for former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
That investigation has been incorporated into the probe led by US special counsel Robert Mueller, who is also scrutinizing Manafort’s role in the Trump campaign as he looks into Russia’s meddling in last year’s election and any possible collusion with Trump associates.
Manafort, who led the Trump campaign for several months, has denied any wrongdoing.
He also spoke behind closed doors to US Senate investigators for an interview just one day before the search of his home.
The use of a search warrant indicates that law enforcement officials have convinced a judge there is probable cause to believe a crime might have been committed.
A house raid can be seen as an aggressive tactic given that Manafort has been cooperating with congressional investigators and has turned over hundreds of pages of documents.
It could indicate law enforcement was looking for records beyond what Manafort provided.
Word of the raid is the latest revelation about Mueller’s investigation, which had been operating in relative secrecy compared with numerous congressional probes looking at the election.
It has become clear the former FBI director is using a grand jury in Washington as part of his investigation.
A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia in the past few months has also been used by investigators looking into former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
FBI agents have also been asking witnesses since the spring about US$530,000 worth of lobbying and investigative work carried out by Flynn’s firm, Flynn Intel Group, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
That work sought the extradition of an exiled Turkish cleric living in the US.
Through his attorney, Flynn has declined to comment on the investigation.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive details of the investigation, said FBI agents have also been asking about Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Kian, who served on the Trump presidential transition team.
Kian has not responded to multiple attempts to contact him over several months.
In the past few months, Flynn and Manafort have turned over documents to congressional committees investigating the election interference.
One focus of the multiple probes, including Mueller’s, is a meeting in June last year that Manafort attended with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr.
That meeting, held at Trump Tower in New York City, was described to Trump Jr in e-mails as part of a Russian government effort to help the Trump campaign by passing along information that could be used against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese