A new indictment has been unsealed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The indictment was filed in mid-February and unsealed Friday, shortly after former Trump campaign aide Richard Gates pleaded guilty as part of Mueller’s sprawling investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The latest indictment accuses Manafort, with Gates’s help, of secretly retaining a group of former senior European politicians to take positions that were favorable to Ukraine as part of their illegal lobbying work for Kiev’s government. That work included lobbying in the United States.
“Although the former politicians would appear to be providing their independent assessments of Government of Ukraine actions, in fact they were paid lobbyists for Ukraine,” the indictment says.
Manafort wired more than $2 million from his offshore accounts to pay these former politicians, the indictment alleges.
…….
The indictment alleges that Manafort and Gates concealed their scheme to avoid registering as a foreign agent in the United States by providing a “false and misleading” statement to two unnamed lobbying firms they retained. They allegedly stated that the European organization they worked with in their lobbying work was not linked or funded in any way by a foreign government.
The organization, known as the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, “was created in or about 2012 in Belgium as a mouthpiece for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions,” his political party, the indictment says.
The U.S. lobbying firms hired by Manafort and Gates, identified only as Company A and Company B, are widely reported to be the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs.
…….
- Discussion
-
#BREAKING: Mueller accuses Manafort of secret payments to European politicians in new indictment https://t.co/VZuuxo8w7t pic.twitter.com/mZzB04zqsK
— The Hill (@thehill) February 23, 2018
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.