Ex-Trump advisers under the microscope

• A Ukrainian lawmaker released new financial documents Tuesday allegedly showing that a former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump laundered payments from the party of a disgraced ex-leader of Ukraine using offshore accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

The documents stem from business ties between Paul Manafort and the party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who enjoyed Moscow’s backing while in power.

Manafort, who worked for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions for nearly a decade, resigned from Trump’s campaign in August after his name surfaced in connection with secret payments totalling $12.7 million by Yanukovych’s party. Manafort has denied receiving those, listed in the party’s “black ledger.”

Serhiy Leshchenko published Tuesday a 2009 invoice purportedly signed by Manafort that shows a $750,000 payment for 501 computers to a company called Davis Manafort.

On the same day, Manafort’s name is listed next to a $750,000 entry in the “black ledger,” which was considered a party slush fund. Leshchenko alleges that Manafort falsified an invoice to legitimize the $750,000 payment to himself.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer made a point Monday to suggest that Manafort was not really a top adviser, reducing Trump’s former campaign manager of several months to having “played a very limited role for a very limited period of time.”

ROGER STONE

In the same briefing Monday, Spicer dismissed longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone as a “hanger-on.” The Trump campaign did part ways with Stone in August 2015, and the two certainly have had an odd relationship. But that relationship dates back decades, and Stone is widely still considered a Trump associate. Stone may have to testify about his contacts with the hacker Guccifer 2.0, who has claimed responsibility for the hack at the Democratic National Committee.

CARTER PAGE

Another “hanger-on,” according to Spicer. Page was named to the Trump foreign policy team in March 2016, and as recently as August was described by Trump spokesman Hope Hicks as an “informal adviser.” But after it was reported that his contacts with Russia were being investigated, Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller insisted that Page “has made no contribution to the campaign.”

MICHAEL FLYNN

A “volunteer of the campaign,” Spicer said. Flynn was there in public with Trump at campaign rallies and was a top surrogate. And then he later became Trump’s national security adviser, albeit briefly.