Details emerge on Justice Department meeting with AP reporters on Manafort

Lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are crying foul over a meeting Justice Department prosecutors held with four Associated Press reporters last year as news organizations and the FBI bore down on the longtime lobbyist and political consultant.

Manafort’s defense has argued for months that the off-the-record session on April 11, 2017, was a potential conduit for improper leaks to the press about the probe that led to two criminal cases against the former Trump campaign chief.

Now, Manafort’s attorneys have fresh evidence they say bolsters their claims: two memos written by FBI agents who attended the meeting and documented their version of what transpired.

Manafort’s legal team paints the evidence as confirmation that journalists were given inside information about the investigation in violation of Justice Department policies and, perhaps, legal prohibitions on disclosure of grand jury secrets.

“The meeting raises serious concerns about whether a violation of grand jury secrecy occurred,” Manafort's lawyers wrote in a filing Friday with U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, who’s set to oversee an upcoming trial of Manafort on bank and tax fraud charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. “Now, based on the FBI’s own notes of the meeting, it is beyond question that a hearing is warranted.”

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