Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort revealed Wednesday that he is in the process of registering as a foreign agent with the U.S. government, in response to an Associated Press story about the money his consulting firm received from a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.
His spokesman, Jason Maloni, says Manafort has been looking to register his firm under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act since before the 2016 election and stressed that he has done nothing improper.
“Since before the 2016 election, Mr. Manafort has been in discussions with federal authorities about the advisability of registering under FARA for some of his past political work,” Maloni said in a statement. “Mr. Manafort received formal guidance recently from the authorities and he is taking appropriate steps in response to the guidance. The work in question was widely known, concluded before Mr. Manafort began working with the Trump Campaign and was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government.”
In the article, the AP reports it obtained financial records confirming numbers found in a Ukrainian ledger that Manafort’s firm received at least $1.2 million between 2007 and 2009. The money was not wired to Manafort’s consulting firm while he served as Trump’s campaign manager from March until August of 2016, but the whole controversy started in August when the ledger was uncovered in Ukraine with dollar amounts listed next to Manafort’s name.
The AP reports that previously Manafort said the ledger was a fake.
But in a separate statement earlier in the day Wednesday, Manafort’s spokesman, Maloni, didn’t deny its existence in response to the AP’s latest exclusive and criticized Serhiy Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist turned Ukrainian lawmaker for perpetuating misinformation about Manafort and later changing his story.
“The new claims of Mr. Leschenko that he has evidence of a wire transfer to a U.S. bank account of Mr. Manafort completely undercuts Leschenko’s long-time charge that the Party of Regions ledger detailed ‘illegal cash payments’ to Mr. Manafort,” Maloni said. “On the face of his own words, the payments were not ‘cash’ and were not ‘illegal’.”
“Allegations of corruption have been lobbed indiscriminately without a shred of evidence,” Maloni added. “Leshenko is attacking Mr. Manafort because he was once supported an opposing political party. He is not credible and his politically motivated allegations are without any legal merit.”
Manafort is being probed as part of congressional and FBI investigations into the Trump camp’s ties to Russia.
