President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman on Wednesday denied allegations he lied to investigators after he began cooperating with them.
Lawyers for Paul Manafort submitted a heavily redacted 10-page filing aimed at knocking down claims by special counsel Robert Mueller's office that he intentionally lied and breached his plea agreement.
Manafort's guilty plea to conspiracy charges in September required him to cooperate with prosecutors and tell the truth about what he knew. Months later, prosecutors accused him of repeatedly lying to them. The lawyers said Wednesday that any misstatements by Manafort reflected an inconsistent recollection of facts and events rather than an intentional effort to mislead.
"Indeed, many of these events occurred years ago, or during a high-pressure US presidential campaign he managed when his time was extraordinarily limited," the defense lawyers said, "or during the difficult time that followed his departure from the 2016 presidential campaign because of the allegations leveled at him and the investigations that followed."
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