Claims link Manafort to Russian influence in US
UNITED STATES: New corruption allegations lodged in Ukraine against US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, have thrust Manafort back into the forefront of ongoing scrutiny over whether the Trump team co-ordinated with the Russian government to influence the US presidential election.
The allegations were disclosed yesterday by a Ukrainian lawmaker who said he had obtained documents showing that Manafort had attempted to hide payments he had received from the party of Ukraine’s former president, who is living in Russia and wanted on corruption charges in his home country.
A spokesman for Manafort called the claims ‘‘baseless’’ and said some of the documents appeared to be fabricated.
The news came after FBI director James Comey confirmed the existence of a federal investigation into possible connections between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
It also followed an apparent effort by the White House to distance Trump from the man who helped to lead his campaign during five critical months last year. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Manafort played a ‘‘limited role for a very limited amount of time’’ in the campaign.
Manafort, 67, a longtime lobbyist and Republican strategist, was hired by the Trump campaign in March 2016. In May, he was named the campaign’s chairman.
From the start, there was a focus on Manafort’s ties to pro-russian figures, given Trump’s repeated calls to forge closer relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russia’s emerging role in seeking to meddle in the US election.
Manafort had done business with Putin-aligned business titans, and worked in Ukraine for former president Viktor Yanukovych’s political party, starting in 2004. Yanukovych fled the country in 2014 amid violent street protests.
Manafort resigned in August, after The New York Times reported that his name appeared in a ‘‘black ledger’’ that showed he was paid US$12.7 million in secret cash payments from Yanukovych’s party. Manafort has denied receiving the payments and says he is the victim of political infighting in Ukraine.
Now Manafort has come under scrutiny in an FBI investigation into possible foreign corruption involving Ukrainian politics, according to people familiar with the matter. They said the investigation was related to the broader counterintelligence investigation into alleged contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian officials.
Manafort vehemently denies any involvement in the Russian efforts and has told people close to him that he is eager to testify before congressional committees investigating Moscow’s intervention in the election.
The new allegations against Manafort were levelled by Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker and journalist.
Leshchenko’s name has emerged separately in a cache of more than 285,000 personal messages apparently stolen from the iphone of Manafort’s daughter, Andrea Manafort, and dumped in February on a website used by cyberhackers. The posted texts show Manafort received a blackmail email purportedly from Leshchenko in August, threatening to release information about his work in Ukraine. Leshchenko has said he did not send the email.
- Washington Post