WASHINGTON -- A federal judge on Monday warned President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman against trying his case in the press, scolding him for helping draft an opinion piece published in Ukraine.
Prosecutors said Paul Manafort contributed to the editorial, published last week in the Kyiv Post, despite an order by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to refrain from using the media to influence public opinion about his Oct. 27 money-laundering and conspiracy indictment.
"The point of the order is to have the merits of the case debated by everybody in this courtroom and not in the press," Jackson said during a pretrial hearing in federal court in Washington. "That order applies to you and not just to your lawyers."
Over the past week, prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller have objected to Manafort's work on the editorial, which defended his political consulting for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and others. Prosecutors said the op-ed undermined their trust in his ability to live up to the terms of his release before his trial.
[DOCUMENT: Read the indictment charging Manafort]
Manafort is accused of hiding his work in Ukraine from the Justice Department, laundering $18 million and concealing offshore accounts from the U.S.
Jackson said that while Manafort may have believed that his editorial would draw little notice outside Ukraine, the pervasive effects of the Internet and social media made widespread dissemination far more likely. But she stopped short of punishing Manafort.
Defense attorney Kevin Downing bemoaned his client's "very difficult situation" in facing news coverage he called misleading and "clearly biased." The judge countered that Mueller's team also had been the subject of "a lot of negative press" and "didn't have the opportunity to go out on the street and set the record straight."
Manafort and co-defendant Rick Gates, a former business associate, appeared together in the courtroom. Both have pleaded innocent to the charges against them. They are among four former Trump associates charged by Mueller, who is investigating whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia before last year's presidential election.
[RUSSIA REPORT: Documents on Russian interference in election ]
Later in the hearing, Jackson questioned whether Manafort had offered sufficient assets to ensure his future appearances, raising doubts about whether he should be able to move freely among homes in Virginia, Florida and New York. She said she would rule later on the question.
An $11.7 million bail package has been proposed to free Manafort from home confinement.
Prosecutors had earlier agreed that the four properties he offered had enough equity to secure his appearances, but the judge questioned why Manafort hadn't submitted appraisals for a lower Manhattan condominium in New York and for another one in Alexandria, Va. The lead prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, said he was satisfied that Manafort had offered sufficient assets.
Jackson questioned why Manafort needed to move between homes. Downing said Manafort is a Florida resident but does more business in New York. "Quite frankly, he does business all over the United States and internationally," Downing said.
Gates hasn't yet submitted a formal request for removal from home confinement in Richmond, Va., but has asked the judge several times for permission to attend his children's sport events.
FIRM DENIES TEXTS
Also on Monday, an investment firm that once hired Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, has denied he sent text messages indicating that U.S. sanctions would be "ripped up" so a nuclear reactor project in the Middle East involving Russian interests could proceed.
Before becoming national security adviser, Flynn advised ACU Strategies on a project to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East. The project had been stymied by sanctions targeting Russia.
Last week, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said a whistleblower reported that ACU's managing director boasted on Inauguration Day that he had exchanged texts with Flynn indicating the project was "good to go" and that U.S. sanctions hobbling the project would be "ripped up."
Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the account raised serious questions about the blurring of Flynn's private and public interests.
In ACU's letter to Cummings last week, Thomas Cochran, the firm's senior scientist, said the witness's allegations "are patently false and unfounded." Cochran said phone billing records for the firm's managing director showed no communications with Flynn.
On Monday, Cummings' staff released his response to Cochran's denial, questioning whether the billing records it cited covered all of the communications on Jan. 20. Cummings noted that the ACU executive could have messaged with Flynn through encrypted applications that would not reveal the texts in billing statements.
Flynn, who spent a month as Trump's top national security aide before he was fired, pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Russia's ambassador about sanctions levied by the administration of President Barack Obama.
Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller's investigation. Cummings said last week in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., that his staff had informed Mueller's office about the whistleblower's account and delayed making the information public "until they completed certain investigative steps. They have now informed us that they have done so."
Information for this article was contributed by David Voreacos and Andrew Harris of Bloomberg News and by Chad Day and Stephen Braun of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/12/2017