(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been indicted in New York on state charges, seen as a strategy for preventing a potential presidential pardon.
An indictment unsealed Wednesday in Manhattan accuses the 69-year-old Manafort of conducting a yearlong residential mortgage fraud scheme that netted millions of dollars.
The indictment filed March 7 was unsealed the same day Manafort was sentenced in Washington in the second of two federal cases against him.
He would serve more than seven years in prison in those cases. Trump has repeatedly defended him and floated the idea of granting a pardon, but would not be able to do so in a state case.
