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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Politics
Lauren Gambino, Jamiles Lartey and Claire Phipps

Trump finds Russia investigation 'very distracting', says John Kelly – as it happened

What we know so far

  • Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and a business associate, Rick Gates, on Monday pleaded not guilty to an indictment for money laundering, tax evasion, failure to register as agents for foreign interests and conspiracy to defraud the US government.
  • Documents unsealed on Monday also revealed that George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty on 5 October to lying to FBI agents over contact with people he believed to be senior Russian government officials. He has since acted as a “proactive cooperator” with the inquiry.
  • The indictments were the first issued by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by members of the Trump campaign.
  • Donald Trump tweeted furiously after news broke of the indictments against Manafort and Gates:

Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus????? … Also, there is NO COLLUSION!

  • The president has not tweeted since the announcement of Papadopoulos’ guilty plea.
  • Manafort and Gates spent Monday night under house arrest, with bail set at $10m and $5m respectively.
  • White House chief of staff John Kelly kept to the official administration line that the offences in the indictments relate to a period before the men were connected to the Trump campaign (this fact check rates that claim as “mostly false”), but admitted in an interview with Fox News:

It is very distracting to the president, as it would be to any citizen, to be investigated for something, while at the same time trying to carry the weight of what being president of the United States means on his shoulder.

Further reading

What did Monday’s revelations tell us about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?

Papadopoulus joined Trump’s campaign early in March 2016. Days later he spoke to an unnamed Trump “supervisor” who spelled out the campaign’s principal foreign policy objective: “an improved US relationship with Russia”.

A week later Papadopoulous flew to Rome where he bumped into a London-based “professor of diplomacy” from a “Mediterranean country”. The professor – identified by the Washington Post as Joseph Mifsud – claimed to have “substantial connections with Russian government officials”.

Papadopoulus, it appeared, saw an opportunity to impress his campaign bosses. According to the FBI, the professor was initially “uninterested” in developing ties, until Papadopoulos revealed his Trump connection. After that he became very keen indeed.

On 24 March there was a follow-up meeting in London. The professor brought a “Russian female national” along with him, who Papadopoulos described in an email afterwards as “Putin’s niece”. (Putin does not have any surviving siblings.)

Papadopoulos told the FBI that his exchanges with this woman were pleasantly innocuous, and amounted to little more than “Hi, how are you?” But this was another fib: in the meantime, he had emailed the Trump campaign supervisor to say he was working on setting up a high-level meeting between “us” and the “Russian leadership”.

The “campaign supervisor” replied: “Great work.”

Then on 31 March, Papadopoulos took part in a meeting in Washington with Trump, the Republican frontrunner, and his national security team. He was pictured seated three chairs away from the candidate. Papadopoulos made an interesting pitch, according to the FBI: he told those seated around the table he could broker a ground-breaking meeting between Putin and Trump.

Read the full report by Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Shaun Walker here:

White House chief of staff John Kelly waded into the debate over Confederate statues late Monday, stating in an interview that the civil war was prompted by an inability to compromise, while suggesting both sides acted in “good faith”.

Speaking with Fox News in a rare interview, Kelly described Confederate general Robert E Lee as “an honorable man” while discussing the recent push to remove monuments and symbols memorializing the pro-slavery Confederacy.

“There are certain things in history that were good, and other things that were not so good,” Kelly told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

Kelly went on to say that Lee, the general of the Confederate army during the American civil war, “was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state”.

“It was always loyalty to state first back in those days,” said Kelly, while adding:

But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand.”

Kelly’s comments echoed those made by Donald Trump in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in August, when a white supremacist drove his car into counter protesters, leaving one woman dead and several others injured.

The president sparked controversy in the days that followed by blaming violence “on both sides”, appearing to put neo-Nazis and white supremacists on equal footing with those demonstrating against them.

Tuesday’s Guardian front page leads on news of the indictments:

As does the Washington Post:

And the New York Daily News:

The Kelly interview also produced this:

Updated

Kelly: 'distracting for president to be investigated'

Kelly tells Fox News:

It is very distracting to the president, as it would be to any citizen, to be investigated for something, while at the same time trying to carry the weight of what being president of the United States means on his shoulder.

The official White House line is, of course, that Trump is not himself under investigation.

Updated

White House chief of staff John Kelly, interviewed for Fox News by Laura Ingraham, insists the administration is unperturbed:

All of the activities, as I understand it, that they were indicted for was long before they ever met Donald Trump or had any association with the campaign.

But I think the reaction of the administration is, let the legal justice system work. Everyone’s innocent till – or presumed innocent – and we’ll see where it goes.

Despite some tweets after the announcement of indictments against Manafort and Gates – “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus????? ....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!” – Trump has been quiet (on social media at least) since the news broke of Papadopoulos’s guilty plea.

During the campaign, in April 2016, however, Trump’s account tweeted this picture of his national security meeting. Papadopoulos is third from the left, on the far side of the table, and four seats away from the now president.

Hot on the heels of news that Russian-backed content reached as many as 126 million Americans on Facebook during and after the 2016 election, Twitter has suspended 2,752 accounts linked to Russian operatives, Reuters reports:

Twitter Inc separately has found 2,752 accounts linked to Russian operatives, a source familiar with the company’s written testimony said. That estimate is up from a tally of 201 accounts that Twitter reported in September.

Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc’s Google are scheduled to appear before three congressional committees this week on alleged Russian attempts to spread misinformation in the months before and after the 2016 election.

Twitter has suspended all 2,752 accounts that it tracked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, and it has given US congressional investigators the account names, the source familiar with the company’s written testimony said.

“State-sanctioned manipulation of elections by sophisticated foreign actors is a new challenge for us – and one that we are determined to meet,” Twitter said in written testimony, according to the source.

Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s campaign, said Russia was the subject of emails from “from time to time” that were exchanged with George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators over his contacts with Moscow.

“It may have come up from time to time … there’s nothing major,” Page told MSNBC host Chris Hayes in an interview late Monday.

“There’s a lot of emails all over the place when you’re in the campaign,” he added.

Page didn’t say what specifically was discussed pertaining to Russia, but his comments come on the same day it was revealed that Papadopoulos, also a former foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty lying to the FBI about communications with Russians linked to the Kremlin.

Page told Hayes he “heard nothing” about Hillary Clinton’s emails or their hacking at the hands of Russians.

His decision to sit down for media interviews has confounded many, given the legal trouble he could find himself in based on his statements. In his interview, Page said Papadopoulos had been cooperating with federal investigators since July and said his own cooperation with the FBI began in March.

Page is poised to testify behind closed doors before the House intelligence committee on Thursday. The panel, which is investigating Russian meddling in the US election, said it would release a transcript of its interview three days later.

Page was separately issued a subpoena by the Senate intelligence committee, which is overseeing its own inquiry into Russia, earlier this month after he declined to turn over documents requested by the panel.

Meanwhile in a parallel universe/Fox News:

Russian-backed Facebook content reached 126m Americans during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, Olivia Solon reports:

According to the company’s prepared testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of hearings this week, 120 fake Russian-backed pages created 80,000 posts that were received by 29 million Americans directly but then amplified to a much bigger potential audience by users sharing, liking and following the posts.

The company plans to disclose these numbers to the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the testimony. The person declined to be named because the committee has not officially released the testimony. Facebook, Twitter and Google will testify at three hearings in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Colin Stretch, a lawyer for Facebook, will explain on Tuesday that Russia’s Internet Research Agency posted the material between 2015 and 2017. The posts spread widely, although many of those 126 million people may not have actually seen the material.

Although 126 million people is about half of Americans eligible to vote, Facebook plans to downplay the significance at the congressional hearings.

“Our best estimate is that approximately 126 million people may have been served one of their stories at some point during the two-year period. This equals about four-thousandths of one percent (0.004%) of content in News Feed, or approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content,” Stretch says in his written testimony, obtained by several news outlets.

Monstrous goings-on at the White House as Donald and Melania Trump doled out candy at the annual (pre-) Halloween festivities.

But multiple reports now say the president’s day had been less of a treat, with CNN citing a Republican source saying Trump was “seething” at news of the indictments, and the Washington Post claiming several sources describing how he reacted to the news “with exasperation and disgust”.

According to Associated Press:

In the hours after the indictment, the president angrily told one confidant that Manafort had been a campaign “part-timer” who had only helped steer the convention and got too much credit for Trump’s ability to hold onto the nomination, according to a person familiar with the private discussion.

U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump give out Halloween treats to children in WashingtonU.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump give out Halloween treats to children at the South Portico of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
This dinosaur is from years ago. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

#IndictmentMonday: What we know so far

  • Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have pleaded not guilty to all all of the charges that Bob Mueller and a grand jury indicted them on.
  • The pair surrendered their passports and are being detained under house arrest until they can produce their bail amounts, set at $10m and $5m respectively.
  • Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators earlier this month has been described as a “proactive cooperator”, which may mean he provided substantial assistance to investigators.
  • White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly downplayed Papadopoulos’ role in the Trump campaign, but former campaign sources have pushed back on that depiction.
  • Sanders and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow both indicated they did not believe the president was considering firing Bob Mueller.

Updated

CNBC has published a detailed interactive chart of the funds allegedly laundered by Paul Manafort through offshore accounts over the course of some seven years.

In detailing the alleged scheme, Mueller’s office listed more than 200 transactions involving payments from shell companies and offshore accounts for property, men’s clothing, antiques, home improvement and cars.

Interactive chart of the funds allegedly laundered by Paul Manafort through offshore accounts.
Interactive chart of the funds allegedly laundered by Paul Manafort through offshore accounts. Photograph: CNBC via Tableau

21 March 2016: Asked to name members of his “foreign policy team”, George Papadopoulos is the third name Donald Trump offers The Washington Post editorial board. “He’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy.”

30 October 2017: “This individual... was a volunteer on the campaign, and a volunteer member of an advisory council that met one time.” - White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Timing is everything

According to Papadopoulos’ plea agreement, he was arrested on 27 July and signed his deal with the feds on 5 October.

Until today, the court had sealed the files related to the case. There are many reasons why a court might elect to do this, but this would be the major one:

Manafort's attorney: 'No evidence Mr Manafort colluded with Russia'

Paul Manafort’s attorney Kevin Downing addressing reporters outside the courthouse a few moments earlier:

Donald Trump was correct. There is no evidence Mr Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government.

Mr. Manafort represented pro-European Union campaigns for the Ukrainians, and in that he was seeking to further democracy and to help the Ukrainians come closer to the United States and the EU. Those activities ended in 2014, over two years before Mr Manafort served in the Trump campaign.

Today you see an indictment brought by an office of special council that is using a very novel theory to prosecute Mr Manafort regarding a Fara (Foreign Agents Registration Act) filing. The US government has only used that offense six times since 1966 and only resulted in one conviction.

The second thing about this indictment that I find most ridiculous- is a claim that maintaining offshore accounts to bring all your funds into the United States as a scheme to conceal from the United States government is ridiculous.”

Updated

Texas Congressman Al Green, who has been the loudest champion of Trump’s impeachment in congress to date, is not mincing words.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

...And what a happy one it is.

Former FBI director James Comey, who tweets under the name of the theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr offered this today on #indictmentmonday.

We’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s a “subtweet” or not.

Jamiles Lartey here taking the helm of the blog.
This statement was just released by Glenn Selig, a spokesperson for Rick Gates:

Rick Gates pled ‘Not Guilty’ today. He welcomes the opportunity to confront these charges in court. He is not going to comment further until he has had a chance to review the lengthy indictment with his legal team. In the meanwhile, he would appreciate you respecting his and his family’s privacy as they weather this unexpected and hasty proceeding designed to accommodate perhaps political and press considerations rather than his right to have counsel of his choice by his side during this most troubling and challenging day for him and his loved ones. This fight is just beginning.”

Trump Russia inquiry: What we know after the briefing, court appearance

  • Manafort and Gates plead not guilty to all 12 counts
  • White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly downplayed Papadopoulos’ role on the campaign. “He was a volunteer on the campaign and a volunteer member of an advisory council that met one time”.
  • Papadopoulos’ guilty plea “has nothing to do with the Trump campaign”, she said.
  • Sanders said it’s not the president’s “intention” at this time to fire the special prosecutor.
  • Trump attorney Jay Sekulow also said he did not believe the president would fire Mueller.
  • Asked about the photo of Trump with Papadopoulos: “The president has thousands of photos with millions of people.”
  • She declined to rule out the possibility that Trump would pardon those implicated by the investigation.
  • Asked if hiring Manafort and Gates was a bad idea, Sanders says: “These were seasoned operatives not regular offenders.” She is unable to say whether the president regrets hiring them.

Updated

Manafort and Gates plead not guilty to all 12 counts

The Guardian’s David Smith can confirm that both Manafort and Gates have pled not guilty on all counts in court.

Updated

Congressman Gowdy suggested that there should be an investigation into the leaks. Sanders says: “We haven’t asked for that investigation to take place”. She adds that she agrees it should be looked in to but that the White House isn’t specifically calling for it.

Does Trump hold Kushner responsible for pushing the hiring of Manafort? “Not that I’m aware of.”

The briefing ends after roughly 20 minutes.

Updated

How did Trump respond to the news of the indictment and guilty plea?

He responded the same way the rest of the right house have. That’s without a lot of reaction because it has nothing to do with us.

Updated

Sanders repeatedly downplays Papadopoulos’ role on the campaign. She repeated that he served on a volunteer advisory council, “I’d hardly call that some kind of regular adviser. He was not paid by the campaign he was a volunteer again on a council that met once.”

She said that his role on the campaign was “extremely limited”, a “volunteer position” and that no activity was ever done in an official capacity in that regard.

Sanders says they believe the investigation will wrap up very soon. She also says Trump hasn’t communicated with Manafort since February.

“We should let the process play through” before we start looking at pardons, Sanders says.

Asked when the president was first aware that Russia was behind the hacking and in possession of damaging emails, Sanders says she’s not aware.

“We’re not worried about it distracting because it has nothing to do with us,” Sanders said.

Jay Sekulow, attorney for president Trump, tells CNN he’s not concerned about the events unfurling on Monday. He also dismissed a suggestion that Trump may fire Mueller.

White House press briefing begins amid indictments and a guilt plea

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is beginning with a length parable about why cutting taxes is beneficial for everyone, including a group of reporters at a bar.

She then takes questions.

On firing Mueller, Sanders says: “There’s no intention or plan to make any changes in special counsel.” She then said the focus of the investigation should be the Democrats and Hillary Clinton.

On Papodopoulos guilty plea: “It has to do with his failure to tell the truth. The are no activities or official in which the campaign was engaged in any of these activities.”

She said of his role in the campaign: “Extremely limited”, “volunteer position” and no activity was ever done in an official capacity in that regard.

Sanders says they believe the investigation will wrap up very soon. She also says Trump hasn’t communicated with Manafort since February.

“We should let the process play through” before we start looking at pardons, Sanders says.

Asked when the president was first aware that Russia was behind the hacking and in possession of damaging emails, Sanders says she’s not aware.

“We’re not worried about it distracting because it has nothing to do with us,” Sanders said.

Sanders repeatedly downplays Papadopoulos’ role on the campaign. She repeated that he served on a volunteer advisory council, “I’d hardly call that some kind of regular adviser. He was not paid by the campaign he was a volunteer again on a council that met once.”

Updated

Papadopoulos’ lawyers have released a statement to say they will refrain from commenting on his cases.

We will have the opportunity to comment on George’s involvement when called upon by the Court at a later date. We look forward to telling all of the details of George’s story at that time.

We’re awaiting the White House press briefing and Manafort’s initial court appearance. For updates on both follow Guardian reporters @Bencjacobs, who is standing by in the James S Brady Press Briefing Room, and @SmithinAmerica, who is waiting with crush of reporters outside of courtroom 4.

Updated

What we know so far

Ahead of an eagerly awaited White House briefing and the imminent appearance in court of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, here’s a summary of what we have learned so far today:

  • Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, and his associate, Rick Gates, surrendered on Monday morning after being indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and alleged collusion by Trump aides.
  • Manafort was indicted on 12 counts, including charges of funneling millions of dollars through overseas shell companies and using the money to finance a “lavish lifestyle”.
  • George Papadopoulos, who acted as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with an influential Russian on 5 October, according to the indictment unveiled on Monday.
  • Papadopoulos was told in April 2016 – a month after joining the campaign – that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”.
  • Papadopoulos has agreed to provide information in the criminal investigation, according to the indictment.
  • Email exchange detailed in the indictment suggest the Trump campaign was considering accepting a Russian invitation to travel to Russia. A footnote included in the document says an email between campaign officials said: “We need someone to communicate that DT [Donald Trump] is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”
  • The White House has so far been silent in response to the twin revelations save for a pair of tweets from Trump claiming: “NO COLLUSION”.
  • Manafort and Gates are due to appear at the DC federal courthouse at 1.30pm on Monday.

Politico is reporting that Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, will be stepping doing from his eponymous lobbying firm, the Podesta Group.

It was reported last week that Podesta and his lobbying firm had come under scrutiny by Mueller’s investigative team after an inquiry into Manafort’s finances, according to NBC News. As special counsel, Mueller has been tasked with investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Tony Podesta is the brother of John Podesta, the former campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton, whose emails were leaked during the election.

Updated

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager who was proceeded by Manafort, said the indictment has “absolutely nothing to do with the campaign” and questioned the actions of the FBI, in an interview on FOX Business Network’s Varney & Co.

Corey Lewandowski
Corey Lewandowski Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

If the public reports are true, and there was a time where Paul Manafort was under a FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978] warrant before coming to the Trump campaign, why is it the FBI never reached out to me as the campaign manager, never reached out to Donald Trump and said “look, you might want to pause for a second and take a look before you bring this guy on board as a volunteer to hunt delegates for you.”

They never did that. He was under a FISA warrant, supposedly, both before and after his tenure at the campaign and the FBI never notified the leading presidential candidate for a major Republican Party race? Never notified him of a potential problem? This is a problem with the FBI if you ask me.

We’ve learned a lot in the last couple of hours that expands the timeline of what we previously knew abut the Trump-Russia saga.

Here’s an updated one by the Washington Post that helps put everything in chronological order, based on the document unsealed on Monday.

The documents also sheds a little more light on earlier reporting from the Post in August.

A footnote from the Papadopoulos statement unsealed on Monday.

Updated

Who is Rick Gates, Manafort’s “right-hand man”?

Gates joined the Trump campaign at the same time as Manafort in March 2016 and served as a top political aide, eventually being promoted to deputy campaign manager.

However, Gates was linked to internal turmoil during the campaign. Most notoriously, according to a campaign source, the Trump aide signed off on and edited the plagiarized speech given by Melania Trump at the Republican national convention, when she was quickly revealed to have copied chunks of a speech by Michelle Obama.

After the campaign, Gates worked at a pro-Trump fundraising Super Pac through to March this year and then stepped down as speculation swirled about both his and Manafort’s ties to Russia.

During a national security meeting in Washington DC on 31 March 2016, Papadopoulos “introduced himself to the group” and stated “in sum and substance, that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin,” according to a “statement of the offense” unsealed on Monday.

Updated

George Papadopoulos, the former campaign aide to Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Here are the key takeaways from the “statement of offense”:

  • Papadopoulos initially told investigators that he befriended an unnamed London-based “professor” with “substantial connections” to Russian government officials before he became an adviser to the campaign. Papadopoulos later corrected his story and told investigators that the professor only became interested in him after learning that he worked for the Trump campaign.
  • Papadopoulos joined the campaign as a foreign policy advisor around March 21, 2016. He first met the “professor” on or about March 24, 2016 in London.
  • The professor also introduced Papadopoulos to an unnamed woman identified in the document as a “female Russian national” who he believed was Putin’s niece.
  • Following the meeting with the professor and female Russian national, Papadopoulos emailed members of the campaign to tell them that he had just met with a “good friend” the professor and they discussed arranging a “meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump”. A campaign supervisor replied: “Great work.”
  • On or about March 31, 2016, Papadopoulos attended a national security meeting with Trump and other advisers, at which Papadopoulos stated that he “could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin”.
  • He then worked with the professor and female Russian national to arrange a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
  • In late April – more than a month after Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign – the “professor” told him that the Russians had “dirt” on then candidate Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails” . He had initially told investigators that those communications occurred prior to joining the campaign.

Read our coverage here.

Updated

Meanwhile Donald Trump is about to step into a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson before joining Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for lunch.

Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation after it was revealed he had not disclosed a meeting with then Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak while serving as surrogate for Trump’s campaign.

Later in the afternoon, Trump will meet with his secretary of Defense James Mattis.

Mattis and Tillerson are due to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tonight.

Paul Ryan has told a local Wisconsin radio station WTAQ that he has nothing to add to this morning’s news and struck a note of confidence that “nothing is going to derail what we’re doing in Congress”.

Updated

Manafort and Gates to appear in court at 1:30pm

The office special consul Bob Mueller has announced that Manafort and Gates are scheduled to appear at 1:30 pm before US Magistrate Judge Deborah A Robinson at the D.C. federal courthouse on 3rd and Constitution.

Ex-Trump campaign aide pleads guilty to lying to FBI agents

Separate from the Manafort indictment, George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty earlier this month to making false statements to FBI agents, according to the office of the US special prosecutor Bob Mueller.

The indictment, which was unsealed on Monday, says that Papadopoulos lied about his contacts with an influential “overseas professor” who had “substantial connections to Russian government officials”. The professor, according to the statement, told Papadopoulos that he had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”.

Papadopoulos had told agents repeatedly that he learned of this information before becoming involved with the Trump campaign. In fact, he met with the professor days after becoming a campaign adviser.

He also initially told investigators that the professor was a “nothing” and just a guy talk[ing] up connections or something” when in truth he understood that the professor had “substantial connections to Russian government officials,” the document says.

That document can be found here.

Updated

Donald Trump: "NO COLLUSION" after ex-campaign manager indicted

Trump says the charges against Manafort pre-date his involvement with the presidential campaign and reprised his attacks on Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

Updated

A dispatch from our Moscow correspondent

The indictment is largely concerned with Manafort’s work in Ukraine, where the consultant became a notorious figure linked with the disgraced regime of Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort was first engaged in the country in 2005 by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, a steel magnate from Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine. Akhmetov was a close ally of Yanukovych, a Donetsk politician friendly to Russia and head of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, which also retained Manafort as a consultant. Yanukovych had won a fraud-marred presidential election in 2004, but was stopped from taking office by the Orange Revolution. Manafort was tasked with giving Yanukovych’s image an overhaul, to make him more appealing to the electorate. In 2010, he won a new election more or less fairly, after receiving image and strategic advice from Manafort. During his time working in Ukraine, Manafort became one of Yanukovych’s most powerful advisers, and also built links with other oligarchs and businessmen from Russia and Ukraine.

Yanukovych, whose rule was marked by rampant corruption in his inner circle, fled to Russia during the Maidan revolution in February 2014. In August last year, an alleged “black ledger” surfaced in Kiev that appeared to show millions of dollars of under-the-table payments to numerous Yanukovych allies, including Manafort.

Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau posted 22 payments to Manafort over a five-year period between 2007 and 2012 with various vague descriptions such as “sociology” or “services”. The payments totalled $12.7m. Manafort said he never received any illegal payments, but the scandal prompted him to resign from Trump’s campaign a few days later.

Updated

Meanwhile, ABC is reporting that George Papadopoulos, a former campaign advisor to the Trump campaign, has plead guilty to “making false statements to FBI agents”.

Updated

What is a grand jury?

Ewen MacAskill, the Guardian’s defence and intelligence correspondent, has the answer to that and more important context in this explainer.

American grand juries are normally made up of about 16 to 23 members of the public rather than the usual 12, hence “grand” jury. They are held in secret – the fact that one has been convened is not even officially acknowledged.

The Wall Street Journal leaked that one has been set up in Washington by Mueller. It will look into links between the Trump team and Russia to influence the White House election and whether there has been any subsequent attempt to obstruct justice.

Updated

Democratic leaders are responding to the news that Manafort and Gates have been indicted.

“Even with an accelerating Special Counsel investigation inside the Justice Department, and investigations inside the Republican Congress, we still need an outside, fully independent investigation to expose Russia’s meddling in our election and the involvement of Trump officials,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. “Defending the integrity of our democracy demands that Congress look forward to counter Russian aggression and prevent future meddling with our elections.”

“These reported indictments show that the special counsel’s probe is ongoing in a very serious way. The rule of law is paramount in America and the investigation must be allowed to proceed unimpeded,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.

“The President must not, under any circumstances, interfere with the special counsel’s work in any way. If he does so, Congress must respond swiftly, unequivocally, and in a bipartisan way to ensure that the investigation continues.”

Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president who took over the Trump campaign after Manafort, said before the report came out that the charges did not necessarily implicate the president or his campaign.

“Whatever happens today with the Mueller investigation, we don’t even know that it has anything to do with the campaign,” Conway said on Fox and Friends.

She repeated that the president believes the investigation is a “hoax” and lamented the fact that Hillary Clinton is still in the news.

After a lengthy tweet-storm on Sunday, Trump meanwhile has only had this to say so far this morning prior to the announcement.

Updated

Manafort and associate charged in Russia Investigation

A federal grand jury indicted Manafort and Gates, his former business associate, on 12 counts, including charges of money laundering, tax and foreign lobbying, according to the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The 31-page indictment was unsealed on Monday morning after Manafort and Gates surrendered to federal authorities.

“Manafort used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States without paying taxes on that income”, the document says.

The indictment may be found here.

Manafort
Paul Manafort covers his face as he leaves his home in a SUV from the parking garage in Alexandria. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/EPA

Updated

Good morning and welcome to the start of a momentous week in Washington. The capital is on edge as the first charges are filed in the investigation into Russian meddling in the US presidential election and possible collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign associates in that effort.

Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager, and his former business associate Rick Gates have surrendered to federal authorities.

Shortly before news of the indictments was reported, Donald Trump tweeted another blast at Democrats over the firm that produced the now infamous “dossier” on him, this time bringing in the name of Barack Obama. He has not tweeted since. The president issued a barrage of angry tweets on Sunday, as expectation mounted.

You can read the developing story here. This blog will provide rolling updates as the day progresses.

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Describing a long-standing bond between their families that began when they were young, Tori Spelling has recalled her childhood friendship with Paris Hilton.
BANG Premier
BANG Premier
Is dark chocolate healthier than milk chocolate? 2 dietitians explain
Easter chocolate is all over supermarket shelves. Some people reach straight for milk chocolate eggs while others pause at the darker varieties, assuming they’re healthier.
The Conversation
The Conversation
Astronauts may struggle to reproduce in outer space, study suggests — what does that mean for the future of space colonization?
A new study found that microgravity simulated on Earth hindered sperm cell movement, egg fertilization and embryo development ‪—‬ findings that have serious implications for the future of space colonization.
LiveScience
LiveScience
Keith Urban Allegedly Claims Nicole Kidman 'Villain Narrative' Is 'Very Unfair,' Vows Revenge
Keith Urban is reportedly furious over a perceived 'villain narrative' around his split from Nicole Kidman, after she omitted him from a recent interview and left him feeling erased.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Former WWE Superstar Braun Strowman Takes Down 7,300 Calories A Day, But It's His Grocery Bill That Has Me Sweating
And it's not just the meat sweats...
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Black Comedian Faces Backlash After Donning “White Face” To Mock Erika Kirk
The skit features Druski with his face painted white, wearing a blonde wig, heavy makeup, and bright blue contact lenses.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
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