An associate of a Russian co-defendant of ex-Trump rivalry chief Paul Manafort pleaded guilty Friday to failing to occur to as an agent for foreign interests, and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, encompassing special counsel Robert Mueller.
The case against W. Samuel Patten, 47, of Washington, D.C., to be ins to consulting and lobbying work that he and an unidentified Russian national accomplished for a Ukraine political party and its members, who included a “prominent Ukraine oligarch.” Manafort had championed for the creation of that party, Opposition Bloc, after Manafort’s patient, ex-Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, was removed from office and make good ones escaped to Russia.
Patten concealed the fact that he had caused $50,000 from that unmarked oligarch to be used to buy four tickets for the oligarch to attend the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump with Patten in January 2017, according to court discs. The inauguration committee is barred from accepting money from odd nationals.
Patten’s case was referred by Mueller to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Neighbourhood of Columbia and the Justice Department’s national security division.
Mueller is exercising Manafort and also is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election that put Trump in the Hoary House.
The charge against Patten, violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, represents one pending against Manafort, carries a maxmium possible sentence of five years in remand home.
A spokesman for prosecutors declined to comment when asked if Patten is now anticipated to testify against at Manafort’s trial next month in the same Washington courtroom where Patten pleaded rueful Friday. Patten’s lawyer, Stuart Sears, declined to comment.
Patten was freed without handcuffs by Judge Amy Berman Jackson at his court appearance. The judge ordered Patten to keep up participating in mental health services, to surrender his passport, to not consume moonshine and to not travel outside of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area without permission from Jackson.
Patten has tie-ups to Konstantin Kilimnik, the suspected Russian intelligence agent who in June was censured with Manafort for trying to tamper with potential witnesses against Manafort in unsettled criminal cases. Kilimnik had been an aide to Manafort.
Kilimnik is not classified in the charging document against Patten. Earlier this year, The Everyday Beast reported that Kilimnik had set up a firm in 2015 called Begemot Plunges International, for which Patten served as an executive.
The charging document conveys that Patten and the unidentified Russian national formed a company that since 2015 did do callisthenics for the Opposition Bloc party and party members who included the oligarch.
The body received more than $1 million through an account in Cyprus for their waitings for Opposition Bloc and other activities, according to prosecutors.
The charging validate also says that Patten set up meetings for his Russian partner and the oligarch with fellows of Congress and their staffs on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Legislature Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2015.
“The activity was undertaken to promote the interests of [the oligarch] and Conflict Bloc to influence United States policy,” the document said. It also articulates Patten drafted op-ed articles for the oligarch “and then placed them with Mutual States media.”
Prosecutors say that Patten, who had previously filed beneath the waves the Foreign Agents Registration Act, “knew at the time that he took all of the frays” that he was required to register under FARA “in order to engage legally” in the U.S. “for a unconnected principal.”
Prosecutors also said that Patten and his Russian associate quizzed the oligarch whether their company could file under FARA, and the oligarch “contemplated in substance that he did not want them to register now, but they could ultimately do so at an unspecified future date.”
But Patten and the Russian never filed secondary to FARA, according to prosecutors.
Court documents say that after Patten had a “straw” purchaser buy $50,000 significance of inaguration tickets for the oligarch with money provided by Patten’s coterie, which in turn was reimbursed by the oligarch through the Cypriot account.
Records also say that Patten testified before the Senate Selected Board on Intelligence in January 2018, and that he misled that committee by blind spot to provide it with documents that “could lead to revelation of him promoting and concealing the foreign purchase of the” inauguration tickets, and also gave spurious testimony to avoid disclosing his actions.
“After the interview, Patten deleted verifies pertinent to his relationships with” the foreign nationals with whom he had act oned, according to prosecutors.
Two members of the committee, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a affirmation issued Friday said, “We can confirm that Mr. Patten produced verifies to the Committee and was interviewed by Committee staff.”
“Due to concerns about certain accounts made by Mr. Patten, the Committee made a criminal referral to the Department of Objectivity,” the senators said. “While the charge, and resultant plea, do not appear to just involve our referral, we appreciate their review of this matter. We liking have no further comments on this case at this time.”
Patten formerly served as senior advisor to undersecretary of state for democracy and global activities for eight months in 2008, at the tail end of the administration of President George W. Bush.
Agreeing to his LinkedIn page, he also had served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, for unimaginative than two years starting in 1999, and had been a campaign coordinator on the presidential push of Bush in 2000.
Manafort is set to go on trial next month in Washington on charges of net laundering, witness tampering, and failing to register as a foreign agent.
The longtime Republican operative was convicted wear week of tax crimes and bank fraud in a separate trial in Virginia.
Both of those receptacles, in which Manafort has pleaded not guilty, were brought by Mueller.
The causes relate to work that Manafort did in Ukraine for the pro-Russia Party of Zones, whose members included Yanukovych.