WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is scheduled to appear in federal court on Friday to face allegations that he lied to prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson will use the hearing to determine whether Manafort violated his plea deal, which could subject him to a harsher sentence.
Manafort originally agreed to cooperate with the special counsel's office after being convicted in August of eight charges of tax evasion and bank fraud during a federal trial in Alexandria, Va. He also pleaded guilty to two additional charges of conspiracy, all of them related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine.
Since then, Manafort met with prosecutors a dozen times and testified twice before a grand jury. But the special counsel's office said in November that he had violated his plea deal by lying in some of his interviews.
Manafort's lawyers have denied that he tried to mislead prosecutors. The evidence, they said in a recent court filing, "merely demonstrates a lack of consistency in Mr. Manafort's recollection of certain facts and events."
The specific topics of Manafort's interviews with the special counsel's office have mostly been obscured by a patchwork of redactions in court filings. But a formatting error in one document revealed that one issue involved Manafort's decision during the presidential campaign to share polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business partner in Ukraine who allegedly has ties to Russian intelligence.
Prosecutors accused Manafort of trying to conceal the communications. But defense lawyers said it wasn't surprising that Manafort failed to remember events that occurred while he "was managing a U.S. presidential campaign and had countless meetings, email communications, and other interactions with many different individuals, and traveled frequently."
Manafort has been in jail since June, when Jackson ruled that he had violated his bail by trying to contact potential witnesses in his case.
He will be allowed, however, to wear a suit to Friday's hearing. The last time he was spotted in court, in October, he was wearing a green prison jumpsuit and sitting in a wheelchair.
Manafort's lawyers say Manafort has been suffering from gout, depression and anxiety. He's also been kept in solitary confinement for his own protection.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in Virginia on Feb. 8 and in Jackson's courtroom in Washington on March 5.
