Trump’s lawyers were briefed on what Manafort told investigators, inflaming tensions with Mueller: NYT report

“A lawyer for Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign chairman, repeatedly briefed President Trump’s lawyers on his client’s discussions with federal investigators after Mr. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel.”
There it is.
Attorneys for Donald Trump are said to have been briefed on what Paul Manafort told federal investigators, which further ratcheted up tensions with special counsel Robert Mueller, reports the New York Times this evening.
Michael Schmidt, Sharon LaFraniere and Maggie Haberman report:
A lawyer for Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign chairman, repeatedly briefed President Trump’s lawyers on his client’s discussions with federal investigators after Mr. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel, according to one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and two other people familiar with the conversations.
The arrangement was highly unusual and inflamed tensions with Mr. Mueller’s office when prosecutors discovered it after Mr. Manafort began cooperating two months ago, the people said. Some legal experts speculated that it was a bid by Mr. Manafort for a presidential pardon even as he worked with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in hopes of a lighter sentence.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the president’s personal lawyers, acknowledged the arrangement on Tuesday and defended it as a source of valuable insights into the special counsel’s inquiry and where it was headed. Such information could help shape a legal defense strategy, and it also appeared to give Mr. Trump and his legal advisers ammunition in their public relations campaign against the special counsel’s office.
For example, Mr. Giuliani said, Mr. Manafort’s lawyer Kevin M. Downing told him that prosecutors hammered away at whether the president knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting where Russians promised to deliver damaging information on Hillary Clinton to his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The president has long denied knowing about the meeting in advance. “He wants Manafort to incriminate Trump,” Mr. Giuliani declared of Mr. Mueller.
While Mr. Downing’s discussions with the president’s team violated no laws, they helped contribute to a deteriorating relationship between lawyers for Mr. Manafort and Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors, who accused Mr. Manafort of holding out on them despite his pledge to assist them in any matter they deemed relevant, according to the people. That conflict spilled into public view on Monday when the prosecutors took the rare step of declaring that Mr. Manafort had breached his plea agreement by lying to them about a variety of subjects.
Mr. Manafort’s lawyers insisted that their client had been truthful but acknowledged that the two sides were at an impasse. Mr. Manafort will now face sentencing on two conspiracy charges and eight counts of financial fraud — crimes that could put him behind bars for at least 10 years.
No comment from Downing. Read the entire report here.

Well this seems to undercut the idea that Manafort ever meant to truly cooperate with Mueller:
His attorney kept briefing Trump's lawyers.https://t.co/1W4m5FwdHy
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 28, 2018

2/ Before a defendant pleads guilty, his interests typically align with other people who are under investigation. In this investigation, before Manafort pleaded guilty, his interests were roughly aligned with Trump's because both of them are under investigation.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 28, 2018

3/ Once Manafort pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mueller, his interests shifted. Typically cooperators / flippers are viewed as part of the prosecution team. They are trying to help the prosecution by providing information and potential testimony.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 28, 2018

4/ It is common for attorneys representing subjects of an investigation to enter into what is called a "joint defense agreement." That is a way that lawyers for different people under investigation agree to exchange information and keep that information privileged.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 28, 2018

5/ That agreement works because of something called the "common interest" doctrine, which says that when two people have a common interest in a legal matter, they can exchange information about that matter and keep it privileged.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 28, 2018