WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman will remain on house arrest at least through the weekend.
A federal judge is keeping in place, for now, the home confinement conditions of Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates. But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson scheduled a bond hearing for Monday to revisit the matter.
At a brief court hearing Thursday, Manafort's lawyer asked the judge to take off GPS monitoring. The judge declined to do so, saying she wanted more information. Gates also appeared and was told he would also remain on house arrest with certain exceptions.
The judge told the lawyers on both sides not to discuss the case publicly and to limit their statements to the courtroom and to court documents.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime business associate Rick Gates are asking a federal judge to release them from home confinement while they await trial on several financial charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Manafort and Gates say in court filings that they don't pose a risk of fleeing the country and should be allowed to travel while they prepare their defences to a 12-count indictment unsealed earlier this week.
Both men say that multimillion-dollar bonds will be enough to make sure they show up for court appearances.
The court papers were filed ahead of a hearing Thursday in federal court in Washington. The two men face charges of money laundering, lying about their foreign agent work for Ukrainian interests and other financial charges.