Washington, DC(AP)…President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a former Manafort business associate, Rick Gates, were indicted Monday on felony charges of conspiracy against the United States, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, and several other financial counts involving tens of millions of dollars routed through offshore accounts.
The indictments, the first arising from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 election effort, bring the probe into a new phase and pose the threat of a years-long prison sentence for the man who once led the president’s campaign.
But the indictment doesn’t reference the Trump campaign or make any allegations about coordination between the Kremlin and the president’s aides to influence the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor. The indictment does allege a criminal conspiracy was continuing through February 2017.