Former Manafort associate is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent

The case was referred by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Samuel Patten, an associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, was charged Friday with failing to register as a foreign agent for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.

The case, being handled by the U.S. attorney for Washington, was referred by special counsel Robert Mueller. The matter was scheduled for an 11 a.m. hearing in a D.C. federal court before Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is also expected to preside over Manafort’s upcoming trial on money laundering charges.

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Patten’s company allegedly received more than $1 million for its Ukraine work from 2015 to 2017, and contacted officials in Congress and the Executive Branch without properly registering as a foreign agent.

Though the information revealed by prosecutors on Friday doesn’t directly name anyone other than Patten, reports in the spring indicated that Patten has associations with some of the figures at the center of Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. In addition to his former ties to Manafort, Patten formed a firm in 2015 with Manafort ally Konstantin Kilimnik, who Mueller’s team has suggested had ties to Russian intelligence as late as 2016.

The charges filed by prosecutors appear to reference this as “Company A,” which the filing characterizes as a joint effort with “a Russian national” in which they were “50-50 partners.” The company advised the pro-Russian Ukrainian party Opposition Bloc, including a “prominent Ukraine oligarch,” in part by lobbying in the United States.

A Daily Beast report in April highlighted these connections — and Patten dismissed the suggestion that Kilimnik maintained ties to Russian inteligence. “A lot of people in our country wish Mueller well. If this is his ace in the hole, I am profoundly depressed,” he told the outlet.

The document alleges that Patten violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, when he contacted congressional and State Department officials on behalf of his foreign clients. He also allegedly drafted talking points for at least one foreign official as well as various op-eds for United States newspapers.

“In or around February 2017, PATTEN succeeded in having the op-ed article published in a national United States media outlet,” prosecutors said.