Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort defended himself following a report by the New York Times alleging $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments in a handwritten ledger to Manafort from the former Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s political party.
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The New York Times this week reported Manafort’s name was found on secret ledgers showing cash payments designated to him of more than US$12 million from a Ukrainian party with Russian ties. In a statement, he called the claims “unfounded, silly and nonsensical”.
The campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic rival of Trump in this year’s election, grabbed the opportunity and sought an explanation from Trump about Manafort’s ties with Russian Federation, the Post said.
The Hillary Clinton campaign quickly seized on the story to demand Trump come clean about his campaign’s pro-Russia ties. Manafort was employed as a political consultant by the Yanukovych re-election campaign at the time.
Government investigators are attempting to unravel the corrupt network of individuals who allegedly looted Ukrainian assests while Yanukovych was in power. She’s leaving D.C. on a train to come to NY, the State Department doesn’t even know about it, so she can interview people for the Clinton Foundation.
Manafort’s lawyer, Richard A. Hibey, told the newspaper his client did not receive “any such cash payments”, The Times reported.
The chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign says he never received a single off-the-books cash payment for political work in Ukraine.
“I’m convinced that this information is accurate and (that these) documents are genuine, because all this content can be confirmed by historical events, evidence and statements by other public figures who are on the list”, Leshchenko said. That scrutiny has increased in response to the suspicion surrounding Russia’s role in the hack of the Democratic National Committee and the Trump campaign’s rhetoric about withdrawing support for Eastern European NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression.
We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort’s name in the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in the column of recipients could belong to other people.
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Now, Manafort’s Russian relationship threatens to swamp his boss’s foreign policy address and intensify calls for both Manafort and Trump to release tax returns showing their sources of income.
