Former Trump Officials Lose Bid to End House Arrest

A U.S. judge rejected a bid Thursday by two former campaign officials for President Donald Trump to end their house arrest pending trial on charges they laundered millions of dollars they were paid to represent one-time Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych so they could hide the income from U.S. authorities.

Paul Manafort, who for three months last year was Trump's campaign chairman, and his business protege, Rick Gates, who was the deputy campaign chairman, had asked a Washington judge to end their home confinement. When they were indicted Monday, a judge required Manafort to pay $10 million if he failed to show up for future court hearings in the case, and Gates $5 million.

Lawyers for Manafort and Gates contended that the penalties for failure to show up for new hearings were large enough that they were unlikely to flee and that they need not be confined to their homes. But Judge Amy Berman Jackson kept the bail terms the same, pending another hearing Monday.

Manafort and Gates were indicted by a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, although the charges against them did not stem from the campaign.

At the same time, special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe, announced that a Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty last month to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and is cooperating with investigators in their probe of other Trump campaign aides.

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