Manafort, ex-aide to Trump, once worked to help Putin

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine antiRussian opposition across former Soviet republics, the Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort that he never worked for Russian interests.

Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan 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 U.S.-Russia relations under President George W. Bush grew worse.

Manafort pitched the plan 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 Associated Press.

Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.

Manafort’s plans were laid out in documents obtained by the Associated Press 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 disclosure comes as Trump campaign advisors are the subject of an FBI inquiry and two congressional investigations. Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign. Manafort has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and misguided, and said he never worked for Russian interests. The documents show Manafort’s ties to Russia were closer than previously revealed.

In a statement, Manafort confirmed 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.”

Deripaska became one of Russia’s wealthiest men under Putin.