“Facing another news story detailing Trump’s team’s ties to Russian Federation and on the day of his foreign policy address, Trump’s campaign manager’s statement raised more questions than it addressed”.
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Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau is investigating whether Mr Manafort received off-the-books cash payments totalling $12.7 million (€11.3 million) from Ukraine’s former Kremlin-supported president Viktor Yanukovych as part of a wider inquiry into allegations of corruption in connection with the former leader.
Charlie Black – a powerful Washington lobbyist who used to work at the firm Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly with Manafort – told Business Insider that he believes his former partner when the Trump campaign chair said on Monday that cash payments were not made to him by any Ukrainian official.
In an email titled “Clinton’s close ties to Putin deserve scrutiny”, the Trump campaign did effectively what the Clinton campaign did two weeks ago.
Manafort, then a hired political advisor to Yanukovych, had his name listed 22 times on a “black ledger” recording off-the-books payments, according to the NABU.
Manafort, whose worldwide clients have included one-time Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, denied any wrongdoing. Trump also has frequently praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump came under fire earlier this month when he appeared to be unfamiliar with Russia’s actions regarding Ukraine and its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The Ukrainian government set aside millions of dollars in cash payments for Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, while he was a political consultant in the country, the New York Times reported late Sunday. Manafort, who has worked for GOP candidates since Gerald Ford’s run in 1976, managed to pull it off, helping “The Donald” to become the party’s nominee.
David A. Graham of The Atlantic discusses the Times report in the context of Trump’s controversial foreign policy approach and finds that it does provoke legitimate concerns about his relationship with Putin.
In his statement to NBC, Manafort insists he has not done any work for the governments of Ukraine or Russian Federation, without detailing his work on behalf of Yanukovych’s political party.
But while Trump was able to rein in his personality for a while, sticking to written speeches and considering ground operations in key states, recently he’s started going off script again-a development that appears to coincide with his renewed interest in Lewandowski. “It is well-known that I do work in the United States and have done work on overseas campaigns as well”, Manafort said in the statement.
The Democratic National Committee on Monday called on Trump to “disclose any and all ties, financial or otherwise, that he or his campaign aides have to the Russian government”.
The Clinton campaign described Manafort as further evidence of Trump’s cozy relationship with Russian Federation.
“Whether they’re actively trying to interfere in the USA election, that’s something that I guess we’ll need to see”, he said. The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly, and nonsensical. At the time, Manafort was a Republican that received $950,000 a year from the Philippine ruler to help him maintain his rule during his third decade in power.
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“My work in Ukraine ceased following the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2014”. The article includes a scan of one of the pages but that page does not include Manafort’s name.
