A reported 2017 meeting between Paul Manafort and the Ecuadorian president is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, CNN reported. Mueller is taking specific interest in whether Wikileaks or its founder Julian Assange came up at the encounter.
“Great importance was being attached to it as a matter of intense investigation by Mueller,” said CNN reporter Carl Bernstein, in an on-air report. “Many witnesses have been asked about this.”
CNN’s report followed an article published Tuesday morning by the Guardian alleging that Manafort traveled to London in 2013, 2015, and March 2016 to meet with Assange, who is hold up in the Ecuadorian embassy there. The Guardian story also stated that Manafort traveled to Ecuador in May 2017 to meet with president-elect Lenin Moreno.
A special counsel court filing from October 2017 states that Manafort travelled to Ecuador on May 9, using a phone registered to a false name while carrying one of his three U.S. passports. Mueller states that Manafort also used the phone on trips over the next month to China and Mexico.
Mueller has reportedly asked witnesses if Manafort raised Assange’s fate with Moreno, who has since purportedly taken a less friendly line towards the country’s guest in London.
The Guardian has also reported that Ecuador spent millions on a spying operation to monitor its own embassy in London.
