This campaign restructuring comes just days after The New York Times reported that Manafort’s name was found in a secret ledger in Ukraine, which listed more than $12 million in cash payments to the political operative who worked on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012.
Advertisement
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, helped a Ukrainian political party with close ties to Russian Federation secretly move at least $2.2 million to two major Washington lobbying firms, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
On Aug. 17, The Associated Press broke the news that several anonymous sources who had been involved in two US lobbying firms have alleged that Manafort had been involved in helping the former Ukrainian Party of Regions payments to two USA lobbying groups. Mr Manafort did not respond to a request for comment.
Under FARA, American lobbyists must report to the Justice Department if they are employed by foreign governments, and provide detailed disclosures.
The AP report comes less than three months before the November 8 election and as polls show Trump slipping behind Clinton.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced that his campaign chairman was being bumped in favor of new campaign chief executive, Breitbart News Chairman Stephen K. Bannon.
Clinton’s campaign has said Manafort’s associations are a troubling sign of ties between Trump’s campaign team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine.
Between 2012 and 2014, Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates steered at least $1.13 million in lobbying fees to the Podesta Group Inc. and another $1.07 million to Mercury LLC, AP reported on Thursday.
One of those firms, Mercury, lobbied against efforts in the US Congress to pressure Ukraine into releasing an opponent of Mr Yanukovych from jail. Manafort had essentially been running the campaign as chairman, but on Wednesday, Trump added both a new campaign manager and new CEO.
In its report today, The Times of London describes a memo written by a Ukrainian prosecutor who investigated Manafort as determining that “he sabotaged USA interests in Ukraine and encouraged Russian nationalism in Crimea”.
The group paid at least $2.2 million to the Washington firms to push positions favorable to the party from 2012 until 2014, when Yanukovych was ousted and fled to Russian Federation, the AP said, citing sources.
Advertisement
Several “current and former employees of the Podesta Group” spoke to AP about the work Manafort and Gates did with the Ukrainian nonprofit.
