President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort is reportedly wanted for questioning by Ukrainian prosecutors who are conducting a corruption investigation.
FBI Director James Comey and several officials at the Justice Department have ignored multiple requests from prosecutors in Kiev who have sought help in bringing Manafort in for questioning. Manafort, a longtime lobbyist, ran Trump’s campaign from late March to mid-August 2016.
He quit the campaign after multiple reports emerged about his alleged foreign ties, including claims that he accepted several cash payments totaling $12.7 million while working as an adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Sources told CNN on Sunday that the case targets the country’s former Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych.
They claim that Lavrynovych illegally sent more than $1 million in government funds to the New York City firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which was reviewing a jail sentencing for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Documents obtained by CNN revealed that Ukraine’s Justice Ministry wired nearly $1.1 million to Skadden in March 2013, which prosecutors believe was done illegally.
“We believe they wanted to avoid the time-consuming competition they would have had to organize to hire the law firm legally, so they drew up the undervalued contract and probably arranged to pay the real fee in cash,” Ukraine’s special prosecutor for investigations, Serhiy Gorbatyuk, was quoted as saying.
Skadden said in a statement about the investigation that they “have been and will continue cooperating with appropriate requests.”
Prosecutors began requesting that Manafort testify after they obtained an email between a Skadden employee and Ukrainian official that mentioned he had been present at a meeting with Lavrynovych.
Manafort has been under a separate investigation by the FBI since last spring when it was first reported that he may have received cash payments from Ukrainian officials.
