2016 that lawyer claimed to have damaging political information about hillary clinton as for this latest brush with controversy manaforts lawyers insist that their client has been truthful but they acknowledge that manafort and muellers team are at an impassepresident trumps former campaign chairman paul manafort has now been accused by the special counsel of violating his plea deal by repeatedly lying to federal prosecutors but this wasnt mr manaforts first scandalcreditcreditdrew angerergetty imageseven after mr manafort was first indicted by the special counsel in october 2017 he continued communicating with mr kilimnik working with him on an oped defending mr manaforts work in ukraine the special counsel argued that the oped flouted a judges admonition against trying to use the news media to influence the caseand court filings by the special counsel this week accused mr manafort and mr kilimnik of teaming up again starting in february to try to persuade two former associates to lie about the scope of a project on which they worked with mr manafort and mr kilimnikthe project which they referred to as the hapsburg group ran from 2011 through 2014 and was funded with 24 million steered by mr manafort from overseas bank accounts according to prosecutors it sought to recruit european politicians such as romano prodi the former prime minister of italy and the former president of the european commission to vouch for mr yanukovych in commentaries and meetings with government officials around the worldthe two former associates for instance helped arrange for mr prodi to visit washington in march 2013 to meet with key members of congress and they helped him draft and place an oped in the times in february 2014 according to prosecutors mr prodi has repeatedly said he was not aware of the involvement of mr manafort or the existence of the hapsburg groupbut prosecutors say that mr manafort and mr kilimnik reached out to the two former associates to urge them to tell the special counsels team that the hapsburg groups efforts consisted only of outreach in europe and not in the united statesthe question of the geographic target of the hapsburg groups activities is significant because any lobbying or public relations in the united states on behalf of foreign politicians governments or companies would require disclosure with the justice department under the foreign agents registration actmr manafort did not initially register under the act and he is charged with lying to the justice department about his activitiesinstead of engaging with mr manafort or mr kilimnik to coordinate their stories about the hapsburg groups work the two former associates turned on their former colleagues the associates who are not named by the special counsel but whom three people familiar with the project identified as alan friedman and eckart sager informed the special counsel of the outreach leading to allegations of witness tampering and fridays obstruction chargesin a court filing on friday night mr manaforts lawyers called the accusation of witness tampering very specious and said it was