Lawmaker downplays his Manafort meeting
Former Trump aide listed dinner with O.C. congressman in filing as foreign agent.
WASHINGTON — When former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort belatedly filed as a foreign agent on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, he listed a meeting with just one U.S. politician — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa.
Manafort’s years-late filing with the Justice Department details $17 million in political consulting work he did from 2012 to 2014 for the Party of Regions, a Ukrainian party considered friendly with the Kremlin.
Rohrabacher told The Times that the March 2013 meeting happened over dinner at the Capitol Hill Club, a popular Washington Republican social club. He said Manafort billed it as a chance to get reacquainted decades after they worked together in the 1970s on President Reagan’s campaign. Still, he assumed Manafort had an agenda.
“I assume when old friends call me up and are wanting to get reacquainted and stuff, I always assume they are in some way under contract with somebody,” Rohrabacher said.
Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, has long been known for encouraging improved relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, a stance that has made him an outlier in the Republican Party and earned him the moniker “Putin’s favorite congressman.”
He said Russia and the Baltic states probably came up during their meal, but it wasn’t the focus of the conversation.
“We discussed a myriad of things, a lot of personal stuff, a lot of different analysis of the politics of the day,” Rohrabacher said. “It was a nice little dinner.”
Three days later, Manafort contributed $1,000 to Rohrabacher’s reelection campaign. That “modest” donation didn’t stand out, Rohrabacher said. He raised just over $45,000 that quarter, according to federal campaign filings.
Ongoing FBI and congressional investigations into Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 election, and how President Trump’s campaign may have been involved, have heightened interest in any connections American politicians may have had with the Russian government or its proxies.
The Associated Press reported in June that Manafort has become a key figure in the FBI’s investigation, especially since special counsel Robert S. Mueller III swept a separate ongoing criminal probe about Manafort’s work in Ukraine into his probe.
Rohrabacher, like Trump, has downplayed the significance of Russia’s meddling, and he’s become a frequent defender of the president’s desire for improved relations between the United States and its former Cold War foe.
In May, the New York Times reported that Rohrabacher had been warned by the FBI in 2012 that Russian spies were trying to recruit him. The story came days after the Washington Post reported that some of the congressman’s colleagues were talking about him having friendly ties to Russia behind closed doors.
The Post reported on a 2016 recording of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy privately saying in a room with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and other House Republican leaders, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” McCarthy has apologized, calling it a poor joke.
When the tape was in the headlines, Rohrabacher said it was obviously meant as a joke. His spokesman said the congressman doesn’t need to be paid to want to encourage a stronger relationship with Russia.
Asked by a reporter if he was getting money from Russia, the congressman laughed heartily, then said, “No.”
“You have to be very careful when you’re using humor,” Rohrabacher told another reporter.
Democrats are targeting Rohrabacher’s Orange County district in 2018. Even though he was reelected by more than 16 points, Democrats see an opening against the 14-term congressman since voters there narrowly backed Hillary Clinton for president.
Several of the candidates running have already criticized Rohrabacher’s friendliness toward Russia, and at least one, Democrat Harley Rouda, immediately began fundraising off the revelation that Manafort met with the congressman while serving as a foreign agent. Rouda called it “embarrassing” in an email to supporters Tuesday.
“We need someone who cares more about Orange County and America than supporting Russia and Putin,” Rouda wrote.
‘We discussed a myriad of things, a lot of personal stuff, a lot of different analysis of the politics of the day. It was a nice little dinner.’ — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on meeting with Paul Manafort, who was then acting on behalf of a pro-Russia Ukrainian party