Despite the risk of being jailed until trial, “this kind of behavior is surprisingly typical when high-powered individuals have their first encounter with the federal criminal-justice system,” says Caroline Polisi, a criminal-defense attorney who handles federal and white-collar cases. “They can’t get it through their heads that they are not above the law and that the government is constantly monitoring them. They also can’t come to terms with the fact that they are no longer in control.” Manafort was indicted as part of a wide-reaching inquiry into whether Donald Trump’s campaign aided a Russian effort to swing the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor, and whether the president attempted to obstruct that investigation.

“Sometimes, strong-willed clients want to take matters into their own hands,” says Harry Sandick, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who now handles white-collar-criminal-defense cases. “The same types of errors in judgment that lead people to find themselves on the receiving end of an indictment also lead them to make bad judgments after they’ve been indicted in federal court.”

A spokesman for Manafort, Jason Maloni, did not address Mueller’s latest accusations directly. In a statement, Maloni reiterated that Manafort “is innocent and nothing about this latest allegation changes our defense. We will do our talking in court.” Michael Caputo, a former Trump-campaign aide who has known Manafort for decades, told me he does “not believe Paul did what the [Office of the Special Counsel] alleges.” Asked why not, Caputo said the allegations sounded “out of character for Paul” and accused the special counsel of making “false moves” against Manafort out of desperation. “It’s getting late in the inquiry and with no proof of collusion, so I expect false moves,” he said. Charlie Black, a political consultant who founded a lobbying firm with Manafort in 1980, says, “All the allegations against Paul surprise me. I pray that he is innocent.”

One of the most significant takeaways from Mueller’s Monday-night bombshell was that Manafort had a co-conspirator, easily identified (though not explicitly named) in the filings as the Russian Ukrainian operative Konstantin Kilimnik. Mueller described Kilimnik, in two previous court documents, as “Person A,” Manafort’s “longtime Russian colleague … assessed to have ties to a Russian intelligence service.” Yet Manafort evidently stayed in touch with Kilimnik through April of this year, according to prosecutors.

Perhaps the biggest risk of trying to contact potential witnesses, according to legal experts, is of a defendant’s bail being revoked. “Judges have no patience for witness tampering,” Frenkel says. As such, Manafort may have cost himself not only his bail agreement but any of his remaining credibility with the judge overseeing his case, Amy Berman Jackson.