Manafort filing details $17 million work in Ukraine

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, registered Tuesday with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for political consulting work he did for a Ukrainian political party, acknowledging that he coached party members on how to interact with U.S. government officials.

Manafort says in a Justice Department filing that his firm, DMP International, received more than $17 million from the Party of Regions, the former pro-Russia ruling party in Ukraine, for consulting work from 2012 through 2014.

Manafort is the second member of the Trump campaign to register as a foreign agent. In March, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn registered with the Justice Department for work his consulting firm performed for a Turkish businessman that he said could have aided the Turkish government. Both registrations came after the work had been completed.

Manafort helmed Trump’s campaign for about five months until August and resigned from the campaign immediately after The Associated Press reported on his firm’s covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling political party. He is one of several people linked to the Trump campaign who are under scrutiny by a special counsel and congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and potential coordination with Trump associates.

Manafort has denied any coordination with Russia and has said his work in Ukraine was not related to the campaign.

The Washington Post first reported Manafort’s registration and posted a copy of his filing online Tuesday. The filing does not bear the date and time stamps showing that it has been formally received by the Justice Department’s FARA unit. But Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni confirmed to several news outlets that Manafort had gone through with the registration.

“Paul’s primary focus was always directed at domestic Ukrainian political campaign work, and that is reflected in today’s filing,” Maloni said.

The documents acknowledge that part of his firm’s job was to advise Ukrainian officials in their dealings with U.S. government officials in the United States. The work also included counsel to the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, a nonprofit group that once included members of Yanukovych’s party.

The filing also contains details of various contractors, both from the United States and Ukraine, whom Manafort employed for the Party of Regions. Manafort paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a firm co-owned by a Republican pollster, Tony Fabrizio, who would later work on Trump’s presidential campaign. Over a two-year period, the firm billed the Party of Regions for more than $2 million in travel and living expenses.

Additionally, the documents show regular payments by Manafort’s firm to Konstantin V. Kilimnik, who served as the manager of its Kiev office.

The filings do not cover the entire period that Manafort worked in Ukraine. Last summer, it was reported that handwritten ledgers kept by the Kremlin-linked party showed that $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments were designated for Manafort’s firm from 2007 to 2012.

Anti-corruption officials in Ukraine asserted at the time that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. Manafort, who resigned his campaign post shortly after the article appeared, has denied receiving any payments in cash, and state prosecutors in Ukraine have not accused him of wrongdoing.

The disclosures cap lengthy negotiations with officials at the Justice Department, which monitors activities of Americans who work on behalf of foreign political parties and governments.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

His registration came more than two months after Maloni said Manafort would be registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Maloni later backed off that statement, saying in late April that Manafort was still considering his options after receiving guidance from the Justice Department.

Under federal law, people who represent foreign political interests and seek to influence U.S. public opinion and policy are required to register with the Justice Department before they perform any work. Manafort’s registration comes more than three years after he completed his work.

It was not immediately clear if Manafort would be required to pay any fines for the late filing, as the Justice Department rarely prosecutes violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Manafort has maintained that the majority of his work for Yanukovych was political consulting in Ukraine, where his firm, Davis Manafort International, operated an office at the time.

In addition to Manafort, his deputy, Rick Gates, also registered for the Ukrainian political work. Gates also served in the Trump campaign. He could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday evening.

In the filing, Manafort said that his company’s work was mostly focused on domestic Ukrainian politics as part of its work for the Party of Regions, which was led at the time by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The filing repeatedly states that Manafort’s firm worked “to advance the goal of greater political and economic integration between Ukraine and the West.”

Manafort’s firm also acknowledged that it had some involvement with a Brussels-based nonprofit called the European Centre for Modern Ukraine, saying that it provided “advice” to the entity.

Last August, it was reported that emails show that Manafort’s firm and Gates, who was also a Trump campaign aide, directed the efforts of Washington lobbying firms that were working on behalf of the center.