Trump campaign official faces new Ukraine charges
Lawmaker says Manafort tried to hide payments
KIEV, Ukraine — After his name surfaced in August in a secret ledger listing millions of dollars in payments from a pro-Russian party in Ukraine, Paul Manafort not only lost his job running Donald Trump’s presidential campaign but also assumed center stage in a bizarre internecine struggle among Ukrainian political forces.
On Monday, the intrigue took another turn, when a member of parliament in Ukraine released documents that he said showed that Manafort took steps to hide the payments, which were tied to Manafort’s work for former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. The documents included an invoice that appeared to show $750,000 funneled through an offshore account and disguised as payment for computers.
Manafort, who denied the latest allegations, has asserted that the ledger is a forgery and that the member of parliament, Serhiy A. Leshchenko, was involved in a scheme to blackmail him. Leshchenko insists that a letter appearing to show him threatening Manafort with the release of damaging information was itself a fake, and he denies any involvement in blackmail.
The latest development unfolded against the backdrop of a congressional hearing Monday in which FBI Director James Comey was asked about Manafort’s work in Ukraine. Comey declined to talk specifically about Manafort.
Illegal slush fund?
Manafort worked for more than a decade for Russian-leaning political organizations in Ukraine before taking the helm of the Trump campaign over the summer. But he was pushed out after anticorruption authorities in Ukraine disclosed that Manafort may have been paid $12.7 million from an illegal slush fund maintained by his client, the Party of Regions.
A handwritten accounting document for the fund, known in Ukraine as the Black Ledger, showed entries for Manafort’s advisory work. Manafort has dismissed the ledger as fraudulent.
On Monday, Leshchenko released an invoice that he said was recovered from a safe in Manafort’s former office in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, that seems to corroborate one of the 22 entries in the ledger from 2009. The invoice billed a shell company in Belize, Neocom Systems Limited, for $750,000 for the sale of 501 computers.
Claims called ‘baseless’
Leshchenko said the invoice, along with computer disks and debit cards belonging to former employees of Manafort, was found by a tenant who rented the space last year. A signature appearing to match Manafort’s as it appears in open sources can be seen on the four-page invoice printed on Davis Manafort letterhead, with an address in Alexandria, Va.
In a statement, a spokesman for Manafort, referring to the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine, dismissed Leshchenko’s allegations as “baseless, as reflected by the numerous statements from NABU officials who have questioned the validity of the so-called ledger evidence against Mr. Manafort.”
The statement continued, “Any new allegations by Serhiy Leshchenko should be seen in that light and summarily dismissed.”
Officials of NABU say they have never questioned the validity of the ledger evidence against Manafort.
Manafort is also one of several people associated with the Trump campaign whose contacts with Russians are under investigation by the FBI and congressional committees into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
Manafort has acknowledged remaining in close touch with a former office manager of his business, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian military interpreter who was investigated in Ukraine last fall over possible ties to Russian intelligence. That investigation closed without any charges. Manafort has denied knowingly contacting Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.
Trump has defended Manafort’s work in Ukraine as a legitimate pursuit for a campaign adviser.
“People knew that he represented various countries, but I don’t think he represented Russia, but represented various countries,” Trump said at a news conference in February. “That’s what he does. People know that. That’s Mr. Manafort, by the way, a respected man, a respected man, but I think he represented the Ukraine or Ukraine government or somebody, but everybody knew that.”