On April 11, 2017 — before Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel — Andrew Weissmann, then chief of the DOJ Criminal Division Fraud Section, arranged a meeting with Associated Press reporters about Paul Manafort. FBI emails and memos later filed in Manafort’s case describe the meeting. Fox News reported the memos: three FBI agents, a DOJ trial attorney, an AUSA, Weissmann, and four AP reporters (Chad Day, Jack Gillum, Ted Bridis, Eric Tucker). A day later, April 12, AP published a major story on Manafort’s Ukraine payments.
the purpose “as it was explained to SSA Greenaway, was to obtain documents from the AP reporters that were related to their investigative reports on Paul Manafort.” SSA Greenaway memo, as quoted by Fox News
SSA Greenaway’s memo, as quoted in that Fox report, said the purpose “as it was explained to SSA Greenaway, was to obtain documents from the AP reporters that were related to their investigative reports on Paul Manafort.” The memo describes reporters discussing a Virginia storage facility and offering a lock code while declining to give the unit address. AP’s spokesperson said the journalists met DOJ “in an effort to get information on stories they were reporting” and asked about a locker “without sharing its name or location.”
John Solomon, writing in The Hill, treated the episode as part of a larger complaint: the Mueller probe’s “troubling reliance on journalists as sources.” Solomon wrote that Weissmann, then a senior fraud prosecutor, led a DOJ/FBI meeting with AP reporters about Manafort in April 2017. That is Solomon’s reporting and opinion column, citing the same meeting.
Allegation Manafort’s lawyers asked for a leaks hearing and suggested grand-jury secrecy or improper assistance to the press. The government called the claims speculative. A judge did not grant the relief Manafort wanted on that theory. There is no finding on this page that Weissmann leaked grand-jury material. There is a documented meeting, documented memos, and a documented AP story the next day.
Manafort’s lawyers later accused Mueller’s “pit bull” of leaking to AP. PJ Media (Debra Heine, May 22, 2018) reported that filing: an April 2017 AP meeting that, Manafort said, leaked money-laundering details. RealClearInvestigations (May 8, 2019) listed the same April 2017 AP meeting in a Mueller-staff profile. Judicial Watch sued the FBI for records of the meeting Weissmann set up (April 29, 2019) and later said 2019 productions showed AP gave a locker code. Daily Signal (Sept. 11, 2018) reported a Meadows letter that Weissmann “participated in unauthorized conversations with the media.” Those are filings and reporting. They do not convert the meeting into a grand-jury-leak finding.