FBI Agent: Federal Investigators May Have Learned Of Manafort Storage Unit From AP Reporters
By Tierney Sneed | June 29, 2018 2:22 pm
In testimony about the events leading up to a search of Paul Manafort’s storage unit, a FBI agent revealed Friday that federal prosecutors and the FBI may have been tipped off to the possibility that Manafort maintained storage lockers after an April meeting with four Associated Press reporters.
The revelation came in a hearing in front of U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis on motions ahead of the trial in the case brought against Manafort in Virginia, which is set to being next month.
The meeting between the AP reporters and investigators was previously known, and pointed to by Manafort in a court filing about media leaks related to the case.
However, FBI special agent Jeff Pfeiffer went into new detail about the actions took after he took after the meeting that culminated in the search of the storage unit in Virginia. Manafort has requested that the judge suppress the evidence from the search, because before getting a warrant, Pfeiffer entered the unit with the permission of a Manafort employee who had a key to it.
The meeting was set up on April 11, 2017, for prosecutors and FBI agents to receive information being offered by the AP reporters, Pfeiffer said during questioning by Uzo Asonye, an attorney representing special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. One of the AP reporters, who were in the midst of their own Manafort investigation, mentioned that Manafort had a storage unit. Pffiefer in his testimony said that it was either that meeting or other investigative efforts that led him to learn of the units.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/fbi-agent-ap-tipped-doj-off-to-manafort-storage-unit
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