WASHINGTON - Federal investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 US election charged US President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide, Rick Gates, with money laundering on Monday.

A third former Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the FBI, it was announced on Monday.

It was a sharp escalation of US Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller's five-month-old investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt the election in Trump's favor, and into potential collusion by Trump aides.

Manafort, 68, a longtime Republican operative, and Gates were arraigned at a federal courthouse in Washington.

Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges against them in a 12-count indictment, ranging from money laundering to acting as unregistered agents of Ukraine's former pro-Russian government.

The judge ordered house arrest for both men and set a $10 million unsecured bond for Manafort and an unsecured bond for Gates at $5 million. With unsecured bonds, they are released without having to pay but will owe money if they fail to appear in court. There will be another hearing on Thursday.

Neither Trump nor his campaign was mentioned in the indictment against the pair. The charges, some going back more than a decade, center on Manafort's work for Ukraine.

A White House spokeswoman said the indictment had nothing to do with Trump or his campaign.

"We've been saying from Day One there's no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and nothing in the indictment today changes that at all," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a news briefing.

The charges against Manafort could put pressure on him to cooperate with Mueller's Russia investigation, said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago.

-Reuters

(China Daily USA 10/31/2017 page2)