Court papers show Manafort drafting op-ed under house arrest
Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump's campaign, was heavily involved in the drafting of an opinion piece on Ukrainian politics even while under house arrest, according to documents released Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors.
Prosecutors said earlier this week that Manafort had ghost-written an op-ed with a colleague who they said was assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence. The disclosure was aimed at showing that Manafort had violated a judge's order to refrain from trying his case in public.
The government on Friday revealed new details that showed that Manafort had made a line-by-line edit of the essay on Nov. 29. The op-ed was published this week in an English-language newspaper in Ukraine under the byline of a former Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman. Prosecutors also say that Manafort's attorney had assured them the essay wouldn't be published.
