By Julia Fair
USA TODAY
November 2, 2017
WASHINGTON — Lawyers defending President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort mounted their first counterattack against federal money laundering and conspiracy charges on Thursday, insisting that federal prosecutors had “embellished” the strength of their case.
Manafort and another former Trump aide, Rick Gates, have been under house arrest since Monday, when special counsel Robert Mueller unsealed a 12-count indictment tied to their work on behalf of a pro-Russian faction in Ukraine. The charges that both served as unregistered agents of a foreign government then laundered their profits into the United States are part of Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.