Manafort associate pleads guilty to illegal lobbying
Sam Patten, a former associate of Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to illegally acting as a foreign agent and is now cooperating with the government.
Patten was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent in the United States.
The charges are related to Patten’s work lobbying on behalf of a political party in Ukraine, known as the Opposition Bloc, according to the criminal information document federal prosecutors filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday.
The criminal information filing typically comes before a subject pleads guilty, according to Bloomberg, who first reported on the charges.
Patten is accused of knowingly and willfully acting as an agent for a Ukrainian political party and its members without registering with the attorney general, a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The government alleges he worked with a Russian national, known only in court documents as Foreigner A, on lobbying and political consulting services, and helped Foreigner A and a prominent Ukraine oligarch set up meetings with members of Congress, specifically senators on the Foreign Relations Committee and representatives on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as officials in the State Department and members of the media.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/404530-manafort-associate-charged-with-illegal-lobbying-report?userid=229233