Manafort discloses more ties with Russia

WASHINGTON—Former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared polling data during the 2016 presidential campaign with an associate accused of having ties with Russian intelligence, according to a Tuesday court filing. Manafort’s lawyers accidentally disclosed the information by not properly redacting it from their paperwork. The filing revealed that Manafort shared the polling data with businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who U.S. officials say is connected with Russian intelligence. Russian officials might have used the information in their effort to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Manafort has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to international business dealings that took place before he joined the Trump campaign. He also faces sentencing on charges of tax and bank fraud. The document filed in court Tuesday did not indicate whether Trump knew of the data transfer that took place during the campaign.

In a separate case Tuesday, federal prosecutors charged Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya with obstructing justice. Veselnitskaya is also under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office for meeting in 2016 with Trump campaign officials at Trump Tower in New York, though the latest charges against her are unrelated. Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged he met with Veselnitskaya in 2016 after he was offered damaging information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He said afterward the meeting did not result in any such information. In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, U.S. attorneys in New York said Veselnitskaya teamed up with a Russian prosecutor to lie to a federal judge on behalf of a real estate firm that perpetrated a $230 million tax fraud scheme. Veselnitskaya is currently in Russia and has denied the charges against her.