VLAD’S ‘MAN’
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago, according to a report Wednesday.
As part of the work, Manafort proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press reported.
The details of Manafort’s involvement with Russian interests come as the FBI, as well as the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, continue to investigate possible links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
The Trump administration and Manafort have repeatedly stated he never worked for Russian interests — claims that would appear to be contradicted by the new report.
Specifically, Manafort proposed in a confidential plan as early as 2005 he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the U.S., Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government — even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush worsened.
Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million 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, the AP reported.
In a statement, Manafort confirmed he worked for Deripaska but said the work was being unfairly cast as “inappropriate or nefarious” as part of a “smear campaign.”
“My work for Mr. Deripaska did not involve representing Russia’s political interests,” he insisted.
The White House on Wednesday said Trump had no knowledge of Manafort’s past business relationship.
“To suggest that the President knew who his clients were from 10 years ago is a bit insane,” Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer said during his daily briefing.
“I don’t know what he got paid to do,” Spicer said. “There’s no suggestion he did anything improper.”
And he made clear that nothing in the AP’s report implicated his boss.
“Nothing in this morning’s report references any actions by the President, or any Trump administration official,” he said. “It's entirely focused on (a client) Paul took on a decade ago.”
The disclosure comes just two days after FBI Director James Comey confirmed his agency is investigating whether the Trump campaign and any of its associates coordinated with Moscow to interfere in the 2016 campaign.
During testimony before the House Intelligence Committee Monday, Comey declined to say whether Manafort, who worked as Trump’s campaign chairman from March to August 2016, was a specific target.
Trump asked Manafort to resign from his campaign after news emerged he had been involved in a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling pro-Russian political party.
Following the testimony, Spicer tried to put some distance between the administration and Manafort, saying Monday that the man who ran the Trump campaign actually had “a very limited role” with the effort “for a very limited time.”