The Associated Press is reporting that former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had a previously undisclosed business relationship with a Russian oligarch in which he worked to advance the interests and reputation of Russian President Vladimir Putin:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort himself that he never worked for Russian interests.
Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse.
Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.
“We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, “will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.”
Manafort’s plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars. How much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.
The disclosure comes as Trump campaign advisers are the subject of an FBI probe and two congressional investigations. Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign. Manafort has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and misguided. The documents obtained by AP show Manafort’s ties to Russia were closer than previously revealed.
In a statement to the AP, Manafort confirmed that he worked for Deripaska in various countries but said the work was being unfairly cast as “inappropriate or nefarious” as part of a “smear campaign.”
“I worked with Oleg Deripaska almost a decade ago representing him on business and personal matters in countries where he had investments,” Manafort said. “My work for Mr. Deripaska did not involve representing Russia’s political interests.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trump’s critics in the Senate, called the disclosures about payments to Manafort from the Russian billionaire “very disturbing if true.”
“That’s basically taking money to stop the spread of democracy, and that would be very disturbing to me,” he said Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
Democrats on the House intelligence committee said the new revelations will feature in the congressional investigations. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said on MSNBC on Wednesday that Manafort should appear before the committee, and he raised the specter of a subpoena should Manafort not appear on his own.
Another member of the intelligence committee, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said the disclosure “undermines the groundless assertions that the administration has been making that there are no ties between President Trump and Russia. This is not a drip, drip, drip” situation, she said. “This is now dam-breaking with water flushing out with all kinds of entanglements.”
Deripaska became one of Russia’s wealthiest men under Putin, buying assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin’s interests. U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 described Deripaska as “among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis” and “a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin’s trips abroad.” In response to questions about Manafort’s consulting firm, a spokesman for Deripaska in 2008 — at least three years after they began working together — said Deripaska had never hired the firm. Another Deripaska spokesman in Moscow last week declined to answer AP’s questions.
When asked Wednesday about Manafort’s work for Deripaska, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “We do not feel it’s appropriate to comment on someone who is not an employee at the White House,” although Press Secretary Sean Spicer discussed Manafort earlier this week during a televised news briefing.
Manafort worked as Trump’s unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August, a period that included the Republican National Convention that nominated Trump in July. Trump asked Manafort to resign after AP revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling pro-Russian political party.
The newly obtained business records link Manafort more directly to Putin’s interests in the region. According to those records and people with direct knowledge of Manafort’s work for Deripaska, Manafort made plans to open an office in Moscow, and at least some of his work in Ukraine was directed by Deripaska, not local political interests there. The Moscow office never opened.
Manafort has been a leading focus of the U.S. intelligence investigation of Trump’s associates and Russia, according to a U.S. official. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are confidential. Meanwhile, federal criminal prosecutors became interested in Manafort’s activities years ago as part of a broad investigation to recover stolen Ukraine assets after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych there in early 2014. No U.S. criminal charges have ever been filed in the case.
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Manafort worked as Trump’s unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August, a period that included the Republican National Convention that nominated Trump in July. Trump asked Manafort to resign after AP revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling pro-Russian political party.
The newly obtained business records link Manafort more directly to Putin’s interests in the region. According to those records and people with direct knowledge of Manafort’s work for Deripaska, Manafort made plans to open an office in Moscow, and at least some of his work in Ukraine was directed by Deripaska, not local political interests there. The Moscow office never opened.
Manafort has been a leading focus of the U.S. intelligence investigation of Trump’s associates and Russia, according to a U.S. official. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are confidential. Meanwhile, federal criminal prosecutors became interested in Manafort’s activities years ago as part of a broad investigation to recover stolen Ukraine assets after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych there in early 2014. No U.S. criminal charges have ever been filed in the case.
FBI Director James Comey, in confirming to Congress the federal intelligence investigation this week, declined to say whether Manafort was a target. Manafort’s name was mentioned 28 times during the hearing of the House intelligence committee, mostly about his work in Ukraine. No one mentioned Deripaska.
On Monday, Spicer had singled out Manafort when asked about possible campaign contacts with Russia. He said Manafort “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time” in the campaign, even though as Trump’s presidential campaign chairman he led it during the crucial run-up to the Republican National Convention.
Manafort and his associates remain in Trump’s orbit. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone. Manafort’s former business partner in eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions. Gates has since helped plan Trump’s inauguration and now runs a nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda.
This news, of course, comes on top of the revelation on Monday during the appearance of F.B.I. Director James Comey before the House Intelligence Committee where he confirmed that the F.B.I. was investigating both Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and ties between the Trump campaign or people affiliated with it and Russian individuals and officials. As I noted, one of the people in Trump’s orbit who was likely to be at least a subject of interest to such an investigation was Paul Manafort, who would already knew to have ties to Russian government and business interests due to work that he had already disclosed that was performed in the years before he became part of the Trump campaign. Now that we have additional information indicating ties to people close to Putin that date back more than a decade, and which Manafort apparently failed to disclose as required by law, the extent of the issues that the Trump White House may be facing as this investigation widens are starting to become more apparent.
The White House, of course, is responding to these reports by attempting to distance itself from Manafort by arguing that he worked for the campaign and doesn’t currently work at the White House and that he left his official position with the campaign seven months ago. The problem with that argument, of course, is that Manafort was more than just a campaign volunteer and that he appears to have played an important role in influencing policy toward Russia during the time that he was part of the campaign. For several months, Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager and, obviously, a close adviser in that role. He also served as the campaign’s leading voice when it came to organizing and setting the agenda for the Republican National Convention. During that time, he apparently worked to change the party’s platform plank regarding Russia, Ukraine, and the annexation Crimea to water down the condemnation that was in the original text. What’s unclear is who’s interests he was working on behalf of when he did that and whether it accurately reflects the Trump Administration’s view of the matter. Additionally, even after he left his official position with the campaign Manafort apparently continued to work behind the scenes on behalf of the campaign, maintained personal contact with the candidate both before Election Day and afterwards, and for all we know may still be in contact with Trump to this day. With all of this in mind, it’s no wonder the the F.B.I. is interested in exactly what’s going on. In fact, we all should be interested in what’s going on given these facts and the fact that President Trump has been notable in his criticism of a numerous foreign leaders with the exception of just a handful of people, one being Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the other being Vladimir Putin. The reasons for Trump’s obsequious praise of Netanyahu are obvious, of course, but it’s never been clear why the President has been so disinclined to be critical of Putin given his comments about other leaders. Until he explains that, people are going to draw their own conclusions.
