Hillary Clinton’s campaign was quick to pounce on the New York Times report late Sunday, slamming Trump for “troubling connections” to Russia and demanding the release of “all other campaign employees’ and advisers’ ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities”.
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Manafort’s ties to Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine, are well documented, reports CBS News correspondent Major Garrett.
Manafort called the report “unfounded, silly, and nonsensical” in a statement Monday.
The New York Times says handwritten ledgers found in Ukraine show $12.7 million in undisclosed payments to Paul Manafort from the pro-Russia party.
The Times writes Manafort has done consulting work for Ukraine’s ruling political party, and that his furniture and personal items were still in a Kiev office as recently as May.
Manafort’s five-year consulting engagement by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian Federation puppet and corrupt oligarch, has come under scrutiny in light of Trump’s invitation for Russian Federation to hack the Democratic National Committee, his criticism of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and his expressed admiration for Putin.
In an explosive report The New York Times reveals that Paul Manafort, now Donald Trump’s campaign manager, is listed as the recipient of 22 “illegal off-the-books” previously “undisclosed cash payments” totaling $12.7 million according to a secret “black ledger” found by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Manafort’s connections to Yanukovych and his party have surfaced intermittently over the past decade, first attracting notice during the 2008 USA presidential campaign when Manafort’s partner in his firm, Davis Manafort Inc., was found to be advising John McCain at the same time as the firm appeared to be working to improve Yanukovych’s image overseas. “But Cheryl Mills, the chief of staff to the State Department, doesn’t make the front page ofThe New York Times, when she’s doing personal favors… so she can interview people for the Clinton Foundation?”.
In an alarmingly narrow denial, Manafort insists that he never received “cash”.
The report also said that the investigators have not yet determined whether Manafort actually received the payments but that “prosecutors say he must have realized the implications of his financial dealings”.
“Number one, Paul says there was no money received”.
“As a matter of fact, he didn’t receive the money”.
Paul Manafort has issued a statement denying that he piled up off-the-books cash from pushing Ukraine toward Moscow.
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He pointed to a reported push by the Trump campaign to scale back lethal assistance to Ukrainians in the GOP platform as evidence of a sudden pro-Putin sentiment in the Republican party.
