Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb Comments On Guilty Verdicts In Manafort Case, Pleas In Cohen case

Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb said Tuesday that the guilty verdicts against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and guilty pleas by Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen prove that the Administration associates with grifters and is tainted by corruption.

“These verdicts and pleas are just the beginning. The fish rots from the head down,” Kleeb said. “The Trump team is and has been corrupt from top to bottom. From the Manafort verdicts, Cohen’s pleas to federal charges and to Administration officials having to resign over misuse of public resources, this administration has shown again and again that they are more loyal to big money, corporations and foreign actors than they are to the United States and the American people.”

Manfort stood trial on 18 federal counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts in the first case brought to trial by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 of the 18 counts and the judge declared a mistrial on those charges.

Cohen pleaded guilty to five federal counts of tax fraud, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution. Federal prosecutors in New York began investigating Cohen after a referral from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

# # # #

Like this article?