The US government monitored Paul Manafort under secret court orders, @evanperez reports https://t.co/7Ay59IhuZG https://t.co/HR2C3VMknR
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 18, 2017
A shocking new report from CNN tonight says that Paul Manafort was wiretapped before and after the election.
The report from Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, and Pamela Brown says that investigators wiretapped Manafort “under secret court orders” and it included “a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.”
Per CNN:
Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive…
A secret order authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) began after Manafort became the subject of an FBI investigation that began in 2014. It centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting firms for Ukraine’s former ruling party, the sources told CNN.
The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources.
The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year.
The New York Times also just put out a report on Manafort with this significant detail:
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the investigation.
You can watch CNN’s on-air report above.
[image via screengrab]
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