Paul Manafort, Former Trump Campaign Chief, Faces New Allegations in Ukraine

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/world/europe/paul-manafort-ukraine-allegations-trump.html?_r=0

by Andrew Kramer


KIEV, Ukraine — After his name surfaced last August in a secret ledger listing millions of dollars in payments from a pro-Russian party in Ukraine, Paul Manafort not only lost his job running Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign but also assumed center stage in a bizarre internecine struggle among Ukrainian political forces.

On Monday, the intrigue took another turn, when a member of Parliament in Ukraine released documents that he said showed that Mr. Manafort took steps to hide the payments, which were tied to Mr. Manafort’s work for former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. The documents included an invoice that appeared to show $750,000 funneled through an offshore account and disguised as payment for computers.

Mr. Manafort, who denied the latest allegations, has asserted that the ledger is a forgery and that the member of Parliament, Serhiy A. Leshchenko, was involved in a scheme to blackmail him. Mr. Leshchenko insists that a letter appearing to show him threatening Mr. Manafort with the release of damaging information was itself a fake, and he denies any involvement in blackmail.

The latest development unfolded against the backdrop of a congressional hearing on Monday in which the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, was asked about Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine. Mr. Comey declined to talk specifically about Mr. Manafort or any other individuals under scrutiny in the bureau’s investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence.

Mr. Manafort worked for more than a decade for Russian-leaning political organizations in Ukraine before taking the helm of the Trump campaign over the summer. But he was pushed out after anticorruption authorities in Ukraine disclosed that Mr. Manafort may have been paid $12.7 million from an illegal slush fund maintained by his client, the Party of Regions.

A handwritten accounting document for the fund, known in Ukraine as the Black Ledger, showed entries for Mr. Manafort’s advisory work. Mr. Manafort has dismissed the ledger as fraudulent.

On Monday, Mr. Leshchenko released an invoice that he said was recovered from a safe in Mr. Manafort’s former office in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, that seems to corroborate one of the 22 entries in the ledger from 2009. The invoice billed a shell company in Belize, Neocom Systems Limited, for $750,000 for the sale of 501 computers.

EXCERPT, CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

[corbe]

Former Trump aide Manafort hires crisis communications firm

 By Megan R. Wilson - 03/21/17 03:35 PM EDT   

Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump's 2016 campaign, has hired a crisis communications firm.

The move comes as Manafort faces scrutiny over possible ties to Russia centered on his past consulting work for officials in the Ukrainian government.

Manafort’s new spokesman is Jason Maloni, a former vice president at Levick who formed his own firm, called JadeRoq, late last year.

“Paul retained me recently because he was getting a lot of media inquiries. Having some support in this area allows folks like you to get your answers faster and allows him to focus on other matters,” Maloni said in an email.

FBI Director James Comey on Monday confirmed publicly that law enforcement is investigating possible ties between Trump campaign officials and Russia. Manafort is widely believed to be among the targets of that investigation.

Manafort on Monday said he “had no involvement” in Russia’s intervention in the 2016 presidential elections, including its email hacking of prominent Democratic groups and figures, and never spoke to Russian officials who claimed involvement.

“The suggestion that I ever worked in concert with anyone to release hacked emails or sought to undermine the interests of the United States is false,” he said in a statement.

"Despite the constant scrutiny and innuendo, there are no facts or evidence supporting these allegations, nor will there be," Manafort said, calling the issue a "blatant attempt to discredit me and the legitimacy of the election of Donald Trump."

Manafort has previously denied reports that he is under FBI investigation for his connections to Russia.

He has also said the Trump campaign had no involvement with the government of Vladimir Putin and denied playing a role in softening platform language about Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine during last summer’s Republican National Convention.

The White House, meanwhile, sought to distance Trump from Manafort on Tuesday.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer described Manafort as someone who “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.”

<..snip..>

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/lobbying-hires/325053-former-trump-aide-manafort-hires-crisis-communications

[Gov Bean Counter]

Stevie Wonder could have seen this one coming...

[geronl]

Stevie Wonder could have seen this one coming...

 

[SirLinksALot]

There's more to this story than meets the eye apparently....


SOURCE: http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/alexandra-chalupa/

EXCERPT:

Alexandra Chalupa, a consultant for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), has been working for several weeks on an opposition research file about Paul Manafort, the campaign manager of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Manafort has a long history of advising politicians around the world, including controversial dictators. Logging into her Yahoo email account, she gets a warning entitled “Important action required” from a Yahoo cybersecurity team. The warning adds, “We strongly suspect that your account has been the target of state-sponsored actors.”

Paul Manafort was a key adviser to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from 2004 until 2010. Yanukovych is a controversial figure frequently accused of widespread corruption and was overthrown after a massive series of protests in February 2014, and has since been living in Russia, protected by the Russian government. Chalupa had been drafting memos and writing emails about Manafort’s link to pro-Russian Ukrainian leaders such as Yanukovych when she got the warning. She had been in contact with investigative journalists in Ukraine who had been giving her information about Manafort’s ties there.

Chalupa immediately alerts top DNC officials. But more warnings from Yahoo’s security team follows. On May 3, 2016, she writes in an email to DNC communications director Luis Miranda, “Since I started digging into Manafort, these messages have been a daily occurrence on my Yahoo account despite changing my password often.”

(EXCERPT) CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

[geronl]

Has Yahoo confirmed they sent such emails?

[Sanguine]

There's more to this story than meets the eye apparently....


SOURCE: http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/alexandra-chalupa/

EXCERPT:

Alexandra Chalupa, a consultant for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), has been working for several weeks on an opposition research file about Paul Manafort, the campaign manager of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Manafort has a long history of advising politicians around the world, including controversial dictators. Logging into her Yahoo email account, she gets a warning entitled “Important action required” from a Yahoo cybersecurity team. The warning adds, “We strongly suspect that your account has been the target of state-sponsored actors.”

Paul Manafort was a key adviser to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from 2004 until 2010. Yanukovych is a controversial figure frequently accused of widespread corruption and was overthrown after a massive series of protests in February 2014, and has since been living in Russia, protected by the Russian government. Chalupa had been drafting memos and writing emails about Manafort’s link to pro-Russian Ukrainian leaders such as Yanukovych when she got the warning. She had been in contact with investigative journalists in Ukraine who had been giving her information about Manafort’s ties there.

Chalupa immediately alerts top DNC officials. But more warnings from Yahoo’s security team follows. On May 3, 2016, she writes in an email to DNC communications director Luis Miranda, “Since I started digging into Manafort, these messages have been a daily occurrence on my Yahoo account despite changing my password often.”

(EXCERPT) CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

So, the 0bama administration was hacking the DNC for information on Manafort?

[endicom]

Chalupa?

Logging into her Yahoo email account, she gets a warning entitled “Important action required” from a Yahoo cybersecurity team. The warning adds, “We strongly suspect that your account has been the target of state-sponsored actors.”

That looks more like refried beans than a message you would get from Yahoo.

[Sanguine]

Chalupa?



That looks more like refried beans than a message you would get from Yahoo.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. 

[Frank Cannon]

FBI Director James Comey on Monday confirmed publicly that law enforcement is investigating possible ties between Trump campaign officials and Russia.

Good 'ol Comey. All hat and no cattle. He runs go nowhere investigations better than Darrel Issa and Trey Gowdy combined.

[Cripplecreek]

Stevie Wonder could have seen this one coming...

LOL Helen Keller could have seen and heard it coming.

[Gov Bean Counter]

LOL Helen Keller could have seen and heard it coming.