Mueller investigating 2017 meeting between Manafort and Ecuador's President
Source: CNN
By Carl Bernstein and Devan Cole, CNN
Updated 2:15 PM ET, Tue November 27, 2018
Washington (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has been investigating a meeting between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno in Quito in 2017 and has specifically asked if WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange, were discussed in the meeting, a source with personal knowledge of the matter tells CNN.
In November 2017, The Associated Press reported that Moreno publicly acknowledged meeting with Manafort and a group of Chinese businessmen who wanted to privatize the country's electric corporation. Moreno said the proposal was rejected.
Earlier Tuesday, The Guardian reported that Manafort secretly met several times with Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, including around the time he was made a top figure in the Trump campaign. The Guardian, citing sources, said Manafort met with Assange in 2013, 2015 and in the spring of 2016. Manafort responded to The Guardian's report by calling it "totally false and deliberately libelous."
"I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him," Manafort said in a statement. "I have never been contacted by anyone connected to Wikileaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or Wikileaks on any matter. We are considering all legal options against the Guardian who proceeded with this story even after being notified by my representatives that it was false."
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/27/politics/paul-manafort-julian-assange-meetings/index.html