The White House said on Friday that President Donald Trump's former campaign manager's decision to plead guilty to two criminal counts and to cooperate with a probe into Russian election meddling had nothing to do with Trump's 2016 victory. 

Paul Manafort will cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as part of a plea deal, prosecutors told a federal court in Washington on Friday. 

"This had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. "It is totally unrelated." 

'Brave man' changes mind 

After months of refusing to assist Mueller's inquiry into Russian interference and possible coordination between Trump campaign members and Moscow, Manafort finally took a plea deal on Friday and agreed to cooperate in return for reduced charges. 

Trump had previously praised Manafort in a Twitter post as "a brave man" for his refusal to cooperate with the inquiry on August 22. 

It is unclear what information Manafort could offer prosecutors but his cooperation might bring Trump, his family and associates under closer scrutiny. 

Cornell University professor of law Jens David Ohlin said it was hard to predict what information a cooperation agreement will yield but that Manafort's deal could be a serious problem for Trump. 

Fifth person to plead guilty

Manafort is the fifth person linked to Trump to plead guilty to criminal charges. 

The others are his former longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen, former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Trump's first national security adviser Michael Flynn and Manafort's business protege Rick Gates, who also worked on the 2016 campaign. 

Manafort, 69, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Washington on Friday to a charge of conspiracy against the US. 

The charge includes a range of conduct from money laundering to unregistered lobbying and conspiracy to obstruct justice for his attempts to tamper with witnesses in his case. The prosecution dropped five other counts. 

The plea, coming on the heels of a conviction in a separate case last month, concludes a steep fall from grace for a multi-millionaire who was often at Trump's side as he took US politics by storm in 2016. 

The investigation has cast a shadow over the president as the leader of the Republican Party going into the November 6 congressional elections that will determine whether or not Republicans keep control of Congress. 

Decade in prison? 

Mueller's team told the court that Manafort had previewed what information he could offer, leading to the deal. The plea agreement requires him to cooperate completely with the government, including giving interviews without his attorney present and testifying before any grand juries or at any trials. 

Manafort is facing up to 10 years in prison on the two charges in Washington alone, and another eight to 10 years on a conviction in Virginia in August on tax and bank fraud charges. 

But depending on the extent of his cooperation and the degree to which prosecutors argue for reducing his sentence, Manafort could end up getting anywhere from a year to five years in prison, according to Mark Allenbaugh, a federal sentencing expert. 

"It would not surprise me if he got time served for both cases," Allenbaugh said. 

Manafort was convicted last month in Virginia on charges that pre-dated his stint on the Trump campaign and involved his work with pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. 

The jury found that he hid from US tax authorities 16 million US dollars he earned as a political consultant in Ukraine to fund an opulent lifestyle and lied to banks to secure 20 million US dollars in loans.

(Cover: Paul Manafort departs from US District Court in Washington, February 28, 2018. /Reuters Photo)