Report: Manafort has visited Mueller 9 times since pleading guilty



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Paul Manafort has visited the office of Special Attorney Robert Mueller at least nine times in the last month, for hours, reported CNN.

A black SUV carrying Manafort would have been seen arriving at Mueller's office around 10 am ET several times since September. Manafort's lawyers would arrive at the same time and they all spend about six hours at a time in the special attorney's office.

Manafort pleaded guilty in September to two counts of conspiracy and obstruction in connection with the ongoing investigation in Russia.

He is arguably the most important cooperation witness to Mueller so far, given his role at the helm of President Donald Trump's campaign during the most crucial period of the 2016 election.

Manafort was the chairman of the Trump campaign when he offered a Russian oligarch private "briefings" on Trump's candidacy. He was one of the three highest-ranking Trump campaigners attending a meeting with two Russian lobbyists offering to sully Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton at the height of the campaign.

And he was leading the campaign when the radical group for transparency, WikiLeaks, started throwing away thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee that had been stolen by Russian agents.

His cooperation with the special council came as the president's allies had asked Mueller to conclude the investigation into Russia.

Mueller has not given any public indication that he would do it. But two US officials told Bloomberg this week that the special council was about to get answers to the two fundamental questions of the investigation: were the members of the Trump campaign colluding with Moscow? to make the run of 2016 in his favor and justice after the existence of the investigation into Russia became public.

News from Mueller's office has been slow in recent weeks as the mid-term elections on November 6 approach, indicating that prosecutors are following DOJ guidelines, which warn of taking action that could affect the outcome of the elections.

Special advocate Robert Mueller.
Thomson Reuters

But Manafort's frequent visits to Mueller's office indicate that the investigation is doing anything but slowing down.

On Wednesday, ABC News announced that Mueller prosecutors were interviewing Manafort for information on GOP longtime strategist Roger Stone. Stone told Business Insider that he had done nothing wrong, but he expects to be charged soon, as he thinks he is "accused".

The legal experts say they expect further revelations from Mueller's office once the elections are over, but they do not expect the special council to issue a final report of its findings in the near future.

What he could do, they added, is to publish a report on his findings as part of the impediment investigation, which he is about to complete.

Meanwhile, the Trump team is providing written answers to the special council on issues relating to possible collusion with Russia. Mueller made it clear that he also wanted to request a follow-up, and prosecutors did not rule out a one-on-one meeting with the president.

Jed Shugerman, professor at Fordham Law School, m said He thinks it's important that Mueller agreed to narrow the scope of his initial questions to Trump to focus on collusion rather than obstruction.

"This suggests that Mueller thinks it's more meaningful and interesting at this point," he said.

Shugerman added that Mueller's questions about collusion indicated that he "probably has sufficient evidence to obstruct." He is forced to allocate his time to obstruction or to Russia chooses Russia, and probably [because] he has great tracks. "

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