Mueller team claims Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors despite plea deal

In November, special counsel Robert Mueller announced that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had violated his plea deal by lying. Newly released documents from Mueller's office reveal the extent of those alleged lies.

What do the documents say?

Konstantin Kilimnik was already a known person of interest in the Mueller investigation. Kilimnik is a Ukrainian national who was trained as a linguist by the Russian army and also has a background in Russian intelligence. It was already public knowledge that Manafort had associated with Kilimnik, and in August, Politico referred to him as "Manafort's man in Kiev."

According to these new documents, as late as February 2018, Manafort was working on a Microsoft Word document called "new initiative for peace," as part of his efforts to help Kilimnik achieve a pro-Russian peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Crimea is part of Ukraine that had been seized by Russian forces in 2014.

The documents also show that Mueller's team believes that Manafort was in contact with Kilimnik between August 2016 and March 2018. Whatever the two talked about during that time, however, has been heavily redacted.

Additional heavily redacted documents filed by Manafort's own lawyers show that Mueller's team believe that he was coordinating with Kilimnik during the U.S. presidential election, in order to work on a way to resolve the crisis in Ukraine to Russia's advantage. Manafort's lawyers also said that Mueller's team had accused Manafort of lying "about sharing polling data with Mr. Kilimnik related to the 2016 presidential campaign."

Manafort was then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign manager from March to August 2016.

Trump has denied ever having knowledge of Manafort's actions, and nothing released from the special counsel's office to date alleges that this is not true. The documents do allege that Manafort had tried to get certain people appointed to positions in the administration, although there is no indication that he was successful.

The documents also allege that Manafort lied about a $125,000 wire transfer, although the details of this particular lie are also heavily redacted.

Manafort's lawyers claim that Manafort had not intentionally told the special counsel's office any lies following his plea deal.