'Trump ex-aide Manafort is hardened criminal'

Washington: Paul Manafort, US President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, is a "hardened" criminal who "repeatedly and brazenly violated the law", prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office wrote in a sentencing memo, adding that it continued even after the 2016 presidential election.

Manafort pleaded guilty last September to conspiracy against the US and witness tampering. At the time of his plea, the former aide also admitted to a litany of money laundering and foreign lobbying crimes that encompassed his work for Ukrainian politicians and other clients over several years. In the memo the prosecutors said that "Manafort chose repeatedly and knowingly to violate the law" from "garden-variety crimes such as tax fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud" to "more esoteric laws" involving foreign lobbying. He lied, they noted, "to tax preparers, bookkeepers, banks, the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice National Security Division, the FBI, the Special Counsel's Office, the grand jury, his own legal counsel, members of Congress, and members of the executive branch of the US government", The Washington Post reported. (IANS)

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