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Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort 'tried to hide' £600,000 payment, claims Ukrainian lawmaker

Serhiy Leshchenko holding pages showing allegedly signings of payments to Paul Manafort in August 2016 - This content is subject to copyright.
Serhiy Leshchenko holding pages showing allegedly signings of payments to Paul Manafort in August 2016 - This content is subject to copyright.

A Ukrainian lawmaker on Tuesday released a document that he claimed may link Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to attempts to hide a $750,000 (£600,000) payment from a pro-Russia political party - a claim strongly denied by Mr Manafort's spokesman.

Lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, published a 2009 invoice purportedly signed by Mr Manafort that shows a $750,000 payment for 501 computers to a company called Davis Manafort. The money came from a Belize-registered offshore company via a bank in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan.

Mr Leshchenko said the contract could be a cover for payments made to Mr Manafort for work he did for the pro-Russian Party of the Regions in Ukraine, which backed former Russia-friendly Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled the country amid anti-government protests in 2014.

Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convention in July 2016 - Credit: AP
Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convention in July 2016 Credit: AP

The Associated Press was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the document.

Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Mr Manafort, called the allegations "baseless" and said they should be "summarily dismissed."

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), which was set up to investigate official corruption, told the AP that it is not going to look into the reports, since Mr Manafort is not a Ukrainian citizen.

Mr Manafort left Mr Trump's campaign in August following revelations about his work for Mr Yanukovych's party. He's one of the Mr Trump associates now under scrutiny for possible contacts with Russia during the 2016 US presidential campaign. His name came up repeatedly during Monday's House intelligence committee hearing on that topic.

Mr Manafort defended himself on Tuesday against suggestions he played a role in Russia's efforts to interfere with the US vote, saying in a statement that he had "no role or involvement" in the cyberhacking of the Democratic National Committee and the disclosure of stolen emails. He also insisted that he's never spoken to any Russian officials or others who claimed to be involved in the hacking attack.

Mr Leshchenko said in an interview with The Associated Press that the 2009 invoice was one of about 50 pages of documents, including private paperwork and copies of debit cards issued for employees, which were found in Mr Manafort's Kiev office by a new tenant.

Donald Trump and the Russian connections

He claimed it resembled "a typical scheme to hide the nature of money using jurisdictions like Kyrgyzstan,  because it's in the middle of nowhere (and) it's almost impossible to investigate there."

Mr Leshchenko claimed the amount and date of the payment - October 14, 2009 - matches one of the entries on the so-called Black Ledges, the handwritten accounting books of the Party of Regions, where Mr Manafort's name stood next to several entries as receiving the party's funds.

Mr Leshchenko argued that the documents found in Mr Manafort's office and the invoice in particular should be investigated by US authorities.

Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych
Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych

"Paul Manafort is an American citizen. NABU has enough to do with corrupt Ukrainian officials. I think they can be party to a bigger international investigation," he said. "First of all, it's up to American officials to investigate, because we're talking about American citizens."

He said the document purported to show that money was "transferred to an account in the United States from Belize opened with an account in Kyrgyzstan, so Ukraine is almost not involved in this."

Mr Leshchenko would not say whether he has shared his findings with US authorities.

Alexander Baunov, an analyst with Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank, said Mr Manafort was advising MrYanukovych on relations with the US and its Western allies as the Ukrainian leader was manoeuvring between Russia and the West. Mr Manafort's job was to "improve Ukraine's relations with the United States, to advise the Party of Regions, which was quite clumsy in international affairs, in dealing with the Europeans and the Americans," he said.

Mr Yanukovych was driven from power in February 2014 by mass protests triggered by his decision to spike a trade deal with the EU under the pressure from Moscow.

"It's a strong simplification to think that Yanukovych was acting as the Kremlin's puppet and followed all the instructions coming from the Kremlin," Mr Baunov said in Moscow.

Donald Trump and Russian espionage

 

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