Court proceedings in the case against Paul Manafort have provided one of the best windows available to the public when it comes to understanding the special counsel investigation. The latest filings on the case don’t seem to reveal any broad strokes of the investigation, but they do indicate that Paul Manafort’s connection to Russian oligarchs were even more extensive than what was already known.
As reported by Reuters, an affidavit produced by the FBI lists a $10 million loan from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska on Manafort’s 2017 taxes. Deripaska is part of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, and was one of Manafort’s key contacts during his decade of working for pro-Russia forces in Ukraine. Deripaska was also the boss of “person A,” Konstantin Kilimnik, who was the recipient of numerous phone calls from Manafort and his former partner Rick Gates during the 2016 election. At one point, Manafort is known to have offered to meet with Deripaska and discuss the Trump campaign.
The discovery that Deripaska handed Manafort a $10 million loan in 2010 is especially strange, because it came just after the Russian Oligarch claimed that Manafort had stolen $18.9 million of his money. In 2007, Manafort and Gates formed an LLC that was supposedly an investment fund. In 2008 Deripaska gave them $18.9 million, supposedly to buy a company called Black Sea Cable, even though in truth that company had already been sold and the people Manafort said he was meeting with no longer had control. Which is just as well, because there’s no evidence that Manafort tried to buy anything at all. Instead, the money just disappeared. Deripaska instead claimed that Manafort and Gates had absconded with his money and, as reported in the Atlantic, made a court filing in the Cayman Islands that Manafort and Gates had “apparently disappeared.”
In fact, Manafort was at the time living in the Trump Tower apartment that he purchased in 2006 and continuing to work with the Ukrainian pro-Russian forces that were directly connected with Deripaska and with Putin. Which would seem to be a pretty conspicuous level of visibility for someone who had just stolen $18.9 million from one of the richest Russian oligarchs. And it makes the fact that Deripaska just months after claiming that Manafort had “disappeared” with his money, he gave the Republican strategist another $10 million seem particularly ludicrous.
And that’s not all. Manafort and Gates got at least $7 million for managing the nonexistent investment firm. All together, Paul Manafort appears to have walked off with $36 million from a Russian oligarch while giving him … nothing. Or maybe not nothing.
The court filings show that Deripaska was also the money man providing under the table funding for Manafort’s work in Ukraine—a connection that was under investigation by Ukrainian officials, out of fear that prosecuting Manafort would endanger Ukraine’s access to US weapons in their continuing fight against Russian invasion. That concern seems extremely valid, especially considering that on Thursday, Trump’s new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, stated that the United States would considering allowing Russia back into the G-7 even if they are continuing their invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
A statement from Manafort attempted to flip what was referred to as the “Cayman Islands dispute” by suggesting that “It’s no secret Paul was owed money going back to 2014”—in other words, saying that, despite a $36 million payment, Deripaska owed Manafort even more. For … something.
And, despite appearances, that money does not seem to have gone directly to Manafort’s bank account. Or, if it did, it did not stop Manafort from needing to take out another $16 million in loans. Including loans from a partner in one of Donald Trump’s real estate deals.