Paul Manafort
As previously reported, Mueller’s ‘pitbull’ Andrew Weissmann organized an “off-the-record” meeting with AP reporters in April of 2017 to discuss Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s financial records and dealings with Ukrainian officials.
At the time of the meeting, Andrew Weissmann was working as the head of the fraud division at the DOJ — he was later assigned to Mueller’s special counsel team as a lead prosecutor.
The AP reporters even provided Weissmann with a numeric code to one of Manafort’s storage lockers in Virginia.
Manafort’s lawyers brought up this corruption and questioned whether “grand jury secrecy” was violated.
Judicial Watch obtained shocking FBI documents showing AP reporters pushing for the criminal prosecution of Paul Manafort — these same reporters colluded with the FBI and DOJ, specifically Weissmann who would then go on to spearhead the investigation into Manafort.
According to a June 11, 2017, FBI write-up:
The purpose of the meeting, as it was explained to SSA [supervisory special agent, redacted] was to obtain documents from the AP reporters that were related to their investigative reports on Paul Manafort.
No such documents were included in the documents released to Judicial Watch.
During the meeting, the AP reporters provided the FBI information about a storage locker of Manafort (the Mueller special counsel operation raided the locker on May 26, 2017):
The AP reporters advised that they had located a storage facility in Virginia that belonged to Manafort…The code to the lock on the locker is 40944859. The reporters were aware of the Unit number and address, but they declined to share that information.
The reporters shared the information that “payments for the locker were made from the DM Partners account that received money from the [Ukraine] Party of Regions.”
The notes suggest the AP pushed for criminal prosecution of Manafort:
AP believes Manafort is in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), in that Manafort send [sic] internal U. S. documents to officials in Ukraine AP has documentation proving this, as well as Manafort noting his understanding doing so would get him into trouble.
AP asked about the U.S. government charging Manafort with violating Title 18, section 1001 for lying to government officials, and have asked if the FBI has interviewed Manafort. FBI and DOJ had no comment on this question.
Also, according to the FBI write-up, “The AP reporters asked about FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations and they were generally told that they are enforceable.”
Although, according to the FBI write-up, “no commitments were made [by DOJ] to assist the reporters,” Andrew Weissmann asked the AP to contact foreign authorities to follow up:
[A]fter the meeting was started and it was explained to the reporters that there was nothing that the FBI could provide to them, the reporters opted to ask a series of questions to see if the FBI would provide clarification. No commitments were made to assist the reporters in their further investigation into the life and activities of Paul Manafort and the AP reporters understood that the meeting would be off the record.
“These shocking FBI reports evidence a corrupt collusion between the DOJ and the media, specifically The Associated Press, to target Paul Manafort,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These reports are further reason for President Trump to pardon Manafort and others caught up in Mueller’s abusive web.”
These shocking FBI reports evidence a corrupt collusion between DOJ and media, specifically The Associated Press, to target Paul Manafort– are further reason for President @RealDonaldTrump to pardon Manafort and others caught up in Mueller’s abusive web. https://t.co/M4WvDSBBFq
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) October 22, 2019
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