“The prosecutors accused Paul Manafort of lying to FBI agents in violation of his guilty plea to cooperate with them and they filed their allegations of the lies under seals. We don’t know what they were,” Napolitano said during a segment with Fox News host Shep Smith.
“Paul Manafort’s lawyer’s filed their answer and they forgot to seal part of it and the part they forgot to seal was that the FBI accused Paul Manafort of lying about whether or not he gave confidential polling data at the height of the campaign to a Russian oligarch who the FBI has identified as source for Russian intelligence,” he continued.
“This shows that Bob Mueller can demonstrate to a court without testimony of Paul Manafort, that the campaign had a connection to Russian intelligence and the connection involved information going from the campaign to the Russians,” Napolitano said.
“The question is, was this in return for a promise of something from the Russians, and did the candidate, now the president, know about it?” the legal expert added.
“And would that be a conspiracy?” Smith asked.
“Yes,” Napolitano replied. “Conspiracy is an agreement to commit a crime. The crime would be to receive something of value from the foreign person or government during a campaign. Whether or not the thing of value arrives, the agreement is what is the crime.”...
