AP Exclusive: US probes banking of ex-Trump campaign chief

U.S. Treasury Department agents have recently obtained information about offshore financial transactions involving President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, as part of a federal anti-corruption probe into his work in Eastern Europe, The Associated Press has learned.

Information about Manafort’s transactions was turned over earlier this year to U.S. agents working in the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by investigators in Cyprus at the U.S. agency’s request, a person familiar with the case said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss a criminal investigation.

…
Federal prosecutors became interested in Manafort’s activities years ago as part of a broad investigation to recover stolen Ukrainian assets after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych there in early 2014. No U.S. criminal charges have ever been filed in the case.

It was not immediately clear what time period was covered under the government request for information about Manafort’s financial transactions in Cyprus. Manafort was known to route financial transactions through Cyprus, according to records of international wire transfers obtained by the AP and public court documents filed in a 2014 legal dispute in the Cayman Islands.  

AP Exclusive???

Yesterday’s news release in Germany’s Deutsche Welle and other US media, sourced in … UKRAINE!

Ukrainian lawmaker accuses former Trump aide of hiding money | DW |

Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko has accused Manafort of hiding a $750,000 (694,000 euro) payment by the Party of Regions, which backed ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort, who served as a campaign chairman for Trump between March and August 2016, previously worked for Yanukovych as a public relations advisor, as well as for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, between 2007 and 2012 [Yanukovych was democratically elected, after Tymoshenko was accused of corruption – Oui] .

Leshchenko – a member of current Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s party – published a 2009 invoice which was purportedly signed by Manafort. The invoice was for 501 computers from a company called Davis Manafort.

‘Baseless’ allegations

But Leshchenko has argued the invoice provided a cover for “political consulting,” saying: “Of course they were illegal payments.” He claims the money came from an account opened by a Belize offshore company based in Kyrgyzstan.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has said it will not look into the reports, as Manafort is not a Ukrainian citizen.  

○ Who Got Manafort Hired in the First Place?   BooMan's fp story on March 22, 2017

More below the fold …

Trump campaign manager Manafort has Ukrainian history | DW |

Ukraine as an indicator

The Ukrainian issue is indicative of Trump’s attitude towards Vladimir Putin’s policies. It has become the hot-button issue in US-Russian relations. During their recent convention, Republicans scrapped a call to supply Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons from their party platform.

Manafort’s team surfaced in Ukraine in 2005. Initially, it advised oligarch Rinat Akhmetov‘s holding company, System Capital Management (SCM). Later on, Akhmetov connected the American political advisor and his team with the “Party of Regions.” Manafort managed to successfully alter the party’s image, and that of its leader. Yanukovych began to speak Ukrainian in public, rather than Russian. His speeches became more concise and convincing. In addition, the party’s electoral events and advertising improved.

Manafort Accused of Money Laundering in Ukraine

Paul Manafort, former campaign chairman for Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential run, is under new scrutiny for his activities while working for a Russian-backed ex-president of Ukraine, as Trump faces renewed questions about ties between his campaign and the Kremlin.  

In documents released by Serhiy Leshchenko, a journalist and lawmaker, Manafort is alleged to have laundered $750,000, via a Belize-based company, in October 2009. That would have pre-dated Manafort’s work for the Trump campaign.

“I have found during this investigation that [Manafort] used offshore jurisdictions and falsified invoices to get money from the corrupt Ukrainian leader,” Leshchenko said during a news conference in Kiev on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

In August, when Manafort was the chairman of then-GOP nominee Trump’s campaign, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials revealed the discovery of a so-called “black ledger” that included Manafort as the recipient of 22 payments totalling $12.7 million in under-the-table cash payments between 2007 and 2012.

 « click for more info »
President Poroshenko (R) congratulates Yurii Lutsenko on his election as NACB prosecutor in May, 2016

The handwritten ledger belonged to the Party of Regions, led by disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych, for whom Manafort worked from 2004 through the presidential elections in 2010. Yanukovych was overthrown in the 2014 pro-Western revolution and has been hiding in Russia; he is wanted on corruption charges in Ukraine. [Who Isn’t? – Oui]

 
Soros is target of Putin’s anger

○ Part 1: Putin’s Response to the Color Revolutions of Regime Change
○ NATO and Soros Crossed Russia’s Red Line in Europe

[Update-1] :: Russian Whistleblowers Turn on Putin – But Can They Be Trusted? | Daily Beast – Feb. 17, 2017 |

Only a few months ago Denis Voronenkov and Maria Maksakova were two of the brightest stars in Moscow’s political firmament, trying to improve the system from inside, but very much a part of it. They rode in luxurious cars, dined with the Kremlin’s elite at expensive restaurants, vacationed in Paris and Cannes. Both were members of the Russian parliament, the Duma. He was a colonel in the Russian military—a veteran of the military prosecutor’s office—as well. She, a classic Russian beauty, was a diva at the Mariinsky (Kirov) opera. The couple lived the good life in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But then the system chewed them up and spat them out.

Now they are whistleblowers—defectors hunted by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, who have found asylum in Ukraine. And they say they are ready to open up in court about the inner workings of the Putin establishment.

For the moment, at least, they say they do not know about Russia’s dealings with Donald Trump or his associates, even if the information they supply to the Ukrainians might help indirectly to find out more about the many questions surrounding the new American president and his team and their contacts with Russian intelligence.

 
Afterthought and a bit of fun …

h/t  big Orange Satan [news Aug. 2016] …  the liason between Murdoch, Trump [!] and Putin, who is Wendi Deng Murdoch

Revenge? Don’t bang my former mistress, just recently …

○ Could it be that Vladimir Putin and Wendi Deng are in love? | Vanity Fair – March 2016 |

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like Putin so he supported the Clinton campaign, based on proprietary rights [jealousy] … using Mensch

○ Rupert Murdoch’s Louise Mensch a Hillary Supporter