Reveals closer Manafort ties to Russian

Mueller reveals closer Manafort ties to Russian oligarch

Paul Manafort and his wife received a $10 million loan from Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin.

By JOSH MEYER

Federal court documents unsealed Wednesday reveal that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had much closer ties to a Russian oligarch linked to Vladimir Putin than had been previously disclosed.

A company jointly owned by Manafort and his wife received a $10 million loan in 2010 from the oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, according to the documents, which also alleged that the Russian billionaire provided financial backing for Manafort’s consulting work in Ukraine as far back as 2005.

That information came from a source whose name was redacted in the documents, suggesting that one of Manafort’s former associates has cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

“Obviously this is another tie between Manafort and Russian intelligence,” Asha Rangappa, a former FBI counterintelligence agent, said of the new disclosures, citing Deripaska’s deep ties to Putin and the Kremlin.

The disclosures raise new questions about Manafort's relationship with Deripaska, including whether the $10 million loan — in addition to millions more that he allegedly owed the Putin ally — prompted Manafort to offer to connect Deripaska with the Trump campaign in exchange for financial consideration. Manafort has denied making such an offer, but reportedly expressed interest in doing so via an email to his longtime associate in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik.

Federal agents have said previously in court filings that they believe Kilimnik had ties to Russian spy agencies during the 2016 election when he maintained contact with Manafort, which Kilimnik denies.

NBC News reported last October that at least $26 million changed hands in the form of a loan between Deripaska and a company linked to Manafort. All told, NBC said, the $26 million loan brought the total of their known business dealings to around $60 million, citing financial documents filed in Cyprus and the Cayman Islands.

The Associated Press also has reported that Manafort secretly worked for Deripaska on a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin Government” that paid him as much as $10 million beginning in 2006.

Manafort, who was Trump's campaign manager for several months during his presidential campaign, has been indicted in Washington, D.C.,and Virginia on a slew of charges, including conspiring to launder money, bank and tax fraud, and failing to register as a foreign agent for the pro-Russia Ukraine government. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and is in custody awaiting a July trial in Virginia, and a separate trial in Washington slated for September.

Manafort was forced to resign from the Trump campaign in August 2016 after disclosures of other questionable financial dealings arising from his consulting work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. He has denied doing anything improper, but his financial dealings have become a key focus of Mueller’s investigation, including whether they provided Moscow with leverage to use against Trump’s then-campaign chairman — and the campaign itself — as part of the Kremlin's interference effort.

The court documents unsealed Wednesday also confirm that Mueller has been probing Manafort’s role in a now-infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan, at which he, Donald Trump Jr. and top campaign official Jared Kushner met with a Russian purportedly offering damaging information about Trump rival Hillary Clinton.

While the new disclosures don’t prove that any type of collusion or other wrongdoing occurred, they should offer enough concrete evidence — gathered by FBI agents — to dispel any claims that Mueller’s ongoing investigation is politically motivated, according to Rangappa.

“I can’t believe we are actually still debating whether one or more people was seriously compromised while they were working at the top level of a U.S. presidential campaign,” she said. “And this should bother everyone. We don’t want a hostile foreign power infiltrating our electoral processes.”