WASHINGTON — The special counsel’s accusation this week that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, tried to tamper with potential witnesses originated with two veteran journalists who turned on Mr. Manafort after working closely with him to prop up the former Russia-aligned president of Ukraine, interviews and documents show. The two journalists, who helped lead a project to which prosecutors say Mr. Manafort funneled more than $2 million from overseas accounts, are the latest in a series of onetime Manafort business partners who have provided damaging evidence to Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Their cooperation with the government has increasingly isolated Mr. Manafort as he awaits trial on charges of violating financial, tax and federal lobbying disclosure laws. Another associate said Mr. Manafort and some of his close allies were reading a book by the conservative lawyer and commentator Sidney Powell that claims misconduct in the Enron prosecution. And Mr. Caputo, who was interviewed by Mr. Mueller’s team last month, said that “when Paul decided to fight, he knew the lay of the land.”

Source: New York Times June 08, 2018 00:45 UTC