Trump campaign chief’s Putin links
Manafort worked for oligarch to promote Russian leader’s interests internationally
President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics.
The White House brushed the Associated Press’ revelations aside, though some members of Congress expressed alarm. Manafort’s activities appeared to contradict previous assertions by the Trump Administration and Manafort that he never worked for Russian interests.
Manafort proposed in confidential strategy plans as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin Government, even as US-Russia relations under Republican President George W Bush grew worse.
Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom he eventually signed a $US10 million ($14.2m) annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP.
Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.
“We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, “will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin Government”.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer indicated yesterday that Trump had not been aware of Manafort’s work on behalf of Deripaska.
Manafort worked as Trump’s unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August when Trump asked him to leave after the AP revealed that he had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling pro-Russian political party.
Manafort’s plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars. How much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.
The disclosures come as Trump campaign advisers are the subject of an FBI investigation and two congressional inquiries. Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates co-ordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign, an allegation that Manafort has dismissed as politically motivated.
Manafort confirmed in a statement to the AP that he worked for Deripaska in various countries but said the work was being unfairly cast as “inappropriate or nefarious” as part of a “smear campaign”.
Republican Senator John McCain called the disclosures “serious stuff” and more evidence that an independent congressional committee should investigate the Trump Administration. “Other shoes will drop,” he said.
McCain’s Republican colleague Senator Lindsey Graham , another frequent Trump critic, called the disclosures “something that needs to be looked at”.
Deripaska became one of Russia’s wealthiest men under Putin, buying assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin’s interests. CNN yesterday reported that the FBI has suspicious information on Trump associates' ties with Russia. The information indicated associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives, US officials told CNN. The US Secret Service requested US$60 million ($85.2m) in additional funding for the next year, offering the most precise estimate yet of the escalating costs for travel and protection resulting from the unusually complicated lifestyle of the Trump family. Post-election communications of Trump’s team were swept up in an “incidental collection” by intelligence agencies, said the Republican Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman.