“The Times does fail to disclose the fact that the Clinton Foundation has taken (and may still take) payments in exchange for favors from Hillary Clinton while serving as secretary of state”, Manafort said, referring to Trump’s Democratic opponent.
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Manafort – who has had several worldwide clients including Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos – denies any wrongdoing.
It has not yet been determined, however, if Manafort received the payments. The spokesman said the Anti-Corruption Bureau is conducting an analysis of the signatures. Trump has already been criticized for being too complimentary of Putin, so this bombshell report will only add fuel to that fire.
But yesterday The New York Times reported that handwritten ledgers found in the Ukraine show $12.7 million in previously unreported cash payments to Manafort made by Yanukovych’s political party from 2007 to 2012. He added that all payments received during his time assisting Yanukovych were disbursed throughout his entire local and global staff, including his polling and research, and election and television advertising teams.
“The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly and nonsensical”. The point being that Manafort was not a Trump employee at the time the money may have been given to him; he stopped working for the ex-Ukrainian-president upon his violent ouster in 2014. Manafort’s former lobbying firm – Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly – was cited in a 1992 report titled “The Torturers’ Lobby” by the Center for Public Integrity.
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.
According to the filing, the PR firm, Daniel J. Edelman, Inc., was tasked with creating “a communications campaign to increase Prime Minister Yanukovych’s visibility in the USA and Europe” and to communicate “his actions toward making Ukraine a more democratic country”.
An image makeover partly masterminded by Mr Manafort culminated in Mr Yanukovych winning the presidential election in 2010.
Manafort insisted this morning that the Times’ reporting is inaccurate.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau say secret documents link Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, to $12.7m in “off the books payments” from the party of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
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In a statement, it demanded that the Republican nominee disclose Manafort’s ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities, given Trump’s “pro-Putin policy stances” and “the recent Russian government hacking and disclosure of Democratic Party records”.
