Manafort, who stepped down from Trump’s campaign team Friday, is named in a broad-based US investigation relating to American ties to alleged corruption by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, US media report.
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“I think my father didn´t want to be, you know, distracted by, you know, whatever things that, you know, Paul was dealing with”, he told the Fox News Channel´s “Sunday Morning Futures”, while also praising Manafort´s work for the campaign.
Manafort isn’t the focus of the investigation, according to the U.S. official.
Manafort installed many of his associates in the upper echelons of the campaign, signaled his support for an allied super PAC and crushed attempts to embarrass Trump at the Republican convention in Cleveland.
Trump’s opponents have seized on the reports about the undisclosed cash payments to Manafort to bolster their claims about possible Russian interference in the US elections.
Manafort officially took over the GOP nominee’s operation after Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in June.
“I think Donald Trump ought to really investigate this and where his chief adviser, what his association with the Russians are”, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of IL told CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this week.
Manafort has denied any wrongdoing. Trump still has to answer serious questions hovering over his campaign given his propensity to parrot Putin’s talking points, the roster of advisers like Carter Page and Mike Flynn with deep ties to Russia, the recent Russian government hacking and disclosure of Democratic Party records, and reports that Breitbart published articles advocating pro-Kremlin positions on Ukraine.
The FBI signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine earlier this year, agreeing to work together on crimes related to worldwide money laundering, global asset recovery, and Ukrainian high-level officials’ alleged bribery and corruption.
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Manafort has also been involved financially with corrupt politicians and oligarchs in the Ukraine who were linked to Russian Federation. His Ukraine connections and lobbying efforts in Washington have fuelled criticism during the presidential campaign that he may have broken USA laws about disclosing foreign ties. The publication said that Manafort worked for the Party of Regions and its leader Yanukovych and in the period from 2007 to 2012 received large cash payments from the party’s accounts. He said in a statement that he hasn’t “ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russian Federation”, and that his work in Ukraine ended after parliamentary elections there in October 2014.
