title:  It’s Happening: FBI Carries Out Predawn Raid On Trump Associate’s Home (DETAILS)
text: As Donald Trump finds himself plagued with scandals, the walls are starting to close in around him and we can thank special counsel Robert Mueller for that. Federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid late last month at a house owned by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.The Washington Post reports that the FBI raided Manafort s home in Alexandria, Virginia, with agents armed with a search warrant that they used to seize documents and  other materials,  the Washington Post reports. The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III departed the home with various records,  the Post writes.  The raid came as Manafort has been voluntarily producing documents to congressional committees investigating Russia s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe Manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena. It s possible that Mueller is trying to get Manafort to flip on Trump and his associates:Manafort s allies fear that Mueller hopes to build a case against Manafort unrelated to the 2016 campaign, in hopes that the former campaign operative would provide information against others in Trump s inner circle in exchange for lessening his own legal exposure.Manafort might want to consider a deal with Mueller, after all, it was previously revealed that he worked for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.On March 22, The Associated Press reported that Manafort was paid the hefty sum of $10 million between 2006 and 2009 to lobby on behalf of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Vladimir Putin s. The New York Times reported recently that Manafort was indebted to pro-Russian interests as late as last year. Investigators are also probing whether Manafort engaged in money laundering.It was also revealed that Manafort was indebted to pro-Russian interests and investigators have been probing whether Manafort engaged in money laundering, according to The Wall Street Journal.Manafort served as Trump s campaign chairman for several months before he was ousted over his ties to Kremlin-backed political figures in Ukraine. Manafort is one of the key figures in the investigation as to whether Trump s campaign had ties with Russian officials.Manafort also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. released emails last month which detailed how that meeting was arranged.So, if it s Mueller s intention to get someone to flip, Manafort would likely be his target.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.