Ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort surrenders to FBI

Read Story Transcript

U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, surrendered to federal authorities early Monday in Washington, D.C., amid special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible links between Trump's campaign and Russia.

Manafort has been indicted on 12 counts, including charges of conspiracy against the U.S., money laundering and other financial charges.

​Related: Ex-Trump campaign manager Manafort surrendering amid Russia probe 

Rick Gates, Manafort's former business associate, has also been indicted.  

​The charges against Manafort are not directly related to his work on the Trump campaign, which means that their significance will depend on what happens next in Mueller's investigation, says Washington Post reporter Callum Borchers.

"Depending on how you look at it, the president can sort of breathe a sigh of relief if this is the extent of what the investigators will find and the charges that we will see," Borchers tells The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti. 

"Or this could be the tip of the iceberg … It could perhaps be a point of leverage for Robert Mueller, the special counsel, to exert pressure on Paul Manafort — perhaps to give up more information about a bigger fish, the bigger fish, of course, being the president of the United States."

In the New York Times, Ty Cobb, a senior White House lawyer was reported as saying U.S. President Donald Trump is confident there's no damaging information to offer prosecutors.

"The president has no concerns in terms of any impact, as to what happens to them, on his campaign or on the White House," Cobb said in an interview Thursday.

Also on Monday, newly unsealed court documents revealed that George Papadopoulos, who acted as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, had pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, to making false statements to the FBI. 

The Washington Post had reported previously about Papadopoulos' efforts during the presidential campaign to set up meetings between Russian officials and the Trump campaign to exchange "essentially opposition research about Hillary Clinton," says Borchers.

The meetings Papadopoulos was trying to set up appear not to have happened. But he had told the FBI in January that he had made contact with Russian officials before starting to work on the Trump campaign. 

Papadopoulos has now admitted that those contacts were in fact made after he joined the campaign as an adviser.

"Those false statements are actually more directly related to the investigation, related to the campaign and Russia, than what we have with Manafort," says Borchers.

Follow CBC.ca for updates on this story.

Listen to the full conversation above.

This segment was produced by The Current's Karin Marley.