Prez-tied biz $13M loans to Manafort

ON THE very same day that Paul Manafort left Donald Trump’s presidential campaign he formed a shell corporation that borrowed $13 million from Trump-connected businesses, according to reports Wednesday.

Manafort resigned as Trump’s campaign chairman in August and promptly took out the eight-figure loans, the New York Times reported.

The revelation is the latest twist in the Republican dealmaker’s complex financial situation.

Federal authorities have announced they are probing Manafort’s accounts, but it was unclear if the loans were on their radar.

Manafort has maintained his innocence and has said repeatedly that he has done nothing improper.

“There is nothing out of the ordinary about them and I am confident anyone who isn’t afflicted with scandal fever will come to the same conclusion,” Manafort told The Times.

It was also revealed Wednesday that there may be something to the handwritten ledger that surfaced last August in Ukraine with dollar amounts and dates next to Manafort’s name.

Ukrainian investigators called it evidence of offthe-books payments from a pro-Russian political party — and part of a larger pattern of corruption under the country’s former president.

Manafort, who worked for the party as an international political consultant, has publicly questioned the ledger’s authenticity.

Now, financial records obtained by The Associated Press confirm that at least $1.2 million in payments listed in the ledger next to Manafort’s name were actually received by his consulting firm in the United States.

They include payments in 2007 and 2009, providing the first evidence that Manafort’s firm received at least some money listed in the so-called Black Ledger.

The two payments came years before Manafort (photo inset) became involved in Trump’s campaign, but for the first time bolster the credibility of the ledger.

Manafort had previously insisted that the logbook was a fake.

They also put the ledger in a new light, as federal prosecutors in the U.S. have been investigating Manafort’s work in Eastern Europe as part of a larger anti-corruption probe. Separately, Manafort is also under scrutiny as part of congressional and FBI investigations into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia’s government under President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.