Friday, September 28, 2018

Decades Ago, Paul Manafort Played a Leading Role in a Pioneering Operation to Secretly Funnel Foreign Money into U.S. Politics

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/05/decades-ago-paul-manafort-played-a-leading-role-in-a-pioneering-operation-to-secretly-funnel-foreign-money-into-u-s-politics/
"Trump brought on Manafort, a longtime political consultant, at no cost in March 2016 to recruit delegates for the upcoming Republican National Convention. Two months later, the then-candidate named Manafort his campaign adviser, again without an official salary. Manafort never asked for one. He did not last long, though, at least not officially; Trump removed Manafort in August amid internal campaign discord and following reports of Manafort’s business dealings with Russian-aligned individuals in Ukraine, including Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On June 9, 2016, 11 days before he was named campaign chair, Manafort, along with Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. Special Counsel Robert Mueller III has focused on Manafort. When Mueller was appointed to lead the Trump-Russia probe in May, he began to draw from ongoing investigations into Manafort’s business dealings, including one by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and a review of Manafort’s late filings to comply with FARA. The FBI raided the political consultant’s Virginia home in July to secure documents related to the Russia probe and in August, Mueller subpoenaed Manafort’s bank records."