Former Trump's campaign manager to be sentenced in first week of March

A US District Court judge on Friday tentatively set a sentencing date of March 5 for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager of President Donald Trump.

Manafort, 69, pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy and another of obstruction of justice and agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

But the special counsel's office said this week that Manafort had violated the plea agreement by lying to investigators.

In court on Friday, prosecutors did not disclose what Manafort had allegedly lied about but were told by the judge to do so by December 7 to give his defence team time to respond.

They did not rule out out the possibility of filing additional charges against the veteran Republican political operative.

"Whether there will be additional charges, that determination has not been made," said Andrew Weissmann, an attorney with the special counsel's office.

US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson set March 5 as a tentative date for sentencing on the conspiracy and obstruction charges but said: "we may have to put it off."

Manafort, who worked for the Trump campaign for nearly six months in the middle of 2016, was convicted in August in a separate jury trial in Virginia of eight counts of financial fraud that were unrelated to the campaign.

They stemmed from his work for former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Moscow political party between about 2005 and 2014.

Sentencing, in that case, has been set for February.

Trump has denied any collusion between his 2016 White House campaign and Russia. and frequently denounces the Mueller probe as a "political witch hunt."

(With inputs from agencies.)