President Trump’s ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty in federal court in Washington, DC, on Wednesday to money laundering and other charges.
It was Manafort’s first court appearance since special counsel Robert Mueller announced a new pair of indictments against him last week.
The feds say he laundered more than $30 million and in a separate case in Virginia that he also fraudulently obtained more than $16 million in home mortgage loans by inflating his income.
Mueller’s team is turning up the heat on Manafort by cutting a deal with his former underling Rick Gates, who also worked on Trump’s campaign and who is cooperating with the special counsel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Trump has repeatedly denied that there was collusion and took to Twitter again this week to denounce the probe as a “WITCH HUNT”
Mueller has accused Manafort, 68, of conspiring against the US, money laundering and acting as an unregistered agent of Ukraine in his work there as a political consultant.
Prosecutors say Manafort earned tens of millions of dollars over a decade in his Ukrainian work, which he moved to the US through offshore accounts so he could buy real estate, luxury cars, expensive suits, artwork and rugs.
Manafort moved the money into the US without paying taxes on the income, according to Mueller’s team.