It may take digging many paragraphs into the articles that have emerged over FBI actions in the last two days—because emails—but one item consistently, if quietly, mentioned is that Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort is under investigation. However, while the FBI seems willing to open investigations based on rumors and innuendo, the agency appears to be having difficulty finding evidence. It shouldn’t be that tough with Manafort. This is one case where there is definitely a roaring fire behind the smoke.
Paul Manafort spent years overseeing a makeover effort to get Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovych installed as Ukrainian president. When Yanukovych was forced to run for refuge in Moscow, Manafort went back into Ukraine to forge Russian loyalists and former communists into a new coalition that could destabilize the nation. Russia then invaded Crimea at least partly on the claim that protests there showed how much the people wanted Russia in charge. Who staged these anti-NATO protests that threatened American foreign policy objectives? That would be Paul Manafort.
The senior Ukrainian prosecutor alleges that in 2006 Mr. Manafort orchestrated a series of Anti-Nato, Anti-Kiev protests in Crimea led by Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Party of Regions—now a designated criminal organisation. The protests forced planned Nato exercises there to be cancelled.
In those protests, United States Marines were assaulted, threatened, and eventually forced to leave to avoid further violence—thanks to the man Donald Trump would later put in charge of his campaign.
“We had rocks thrown at us. Rocks hit Marines. Buses were rocked back and forth. We were just trying to get to our base.” …
And hey, FBI? That’s just the start.
In other non-rumor, non-innuendo news, Paul Manafort also routed millions of dollars through firms in the U.S. so Russia could influence the election in the good old “buying it” way.
Donald Trump's campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party's efforts to influence U.S. policy.
And the protests Manafort stage managed in the Ukraine? It appears he was well—and illegally—paid for his work.
What they found was $12.7 million in cash payments from Yanukovych’s pro-Russian forces to Manafort. These weren’t the acknowledged, legitimate payments to Manafort for his services in the campaign. These were secret payments. While the ledgers show these secret payments continuing through 2012, Manafort continued to work in Kiev and was still being paid openly through Yanukovych’s ejection in 2014. And even now, there are indications that he may still be on Moscow’s rolls.
According to some sources, Manafort may have still been receiving payments from Moscow while serving as the campaign manager of a U.S. presidential candidate.
It is not clear that Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine ended with his work with Mr. Trump’s campaign. A communications aide for Mr. Lyovochkin, who financed Mr. Manafort’s work, declined to say whether he was still on retainer or how much he had been paid.
But that part, unlike the rest, does include a degree of speculation.
Let’s sum up …
- Manafort definitely worked for pro-Russian forces in the Ukraine and helped them disguise their true nature long enough to get Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovych installed as president.
- After Yanukovych was driven from the country, Manafort was paid to assemble an anti-Western coalition to fuel unrest in the country.
- Manafort arranged a series of pro-Russian/anti-Western protests in Crimea, providing paid agitators for the purpose.
- These protests both halted planned NATO operations in the region and served as a stated cause for the Russian invasion of Crimea.
- Manafort acted as an agent of a foreign government in funneling funds to U.S. elections and used his Washington connections to hide the true source of those funds.
- Manafort was definitely in charge of the Trump campaign at the time Trump insisted that the Republican platform be modified to make it more Russia-friendly, and Manafort may be the person who actually modified the platform (no one will name the source of the change).
- Manafort did not disclose income from Russia that may run into the millions.
Is that enough to get started? Because there's more.
Until he joined Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign this year, Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine had been his most significant political campaign in recent years. He began his career in Republican politics in the 1970s and extended it overseas to advising authoritarian leaders, including Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Mr. Yanukovych.
That would be authoritarian military dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled over a notoriously corrupt single-party state, and dictator Ferdinand Marcos who kept crushing martial law in place for a decade while pocketing $10 billion for himself (and buying a lot of shoes). And pro-Russia authoritarian Viktor Yanukovych who … see above.
He advised those guys. And then Donald Trump.
Or really, you could knock both Yanukovych and Trump off the list—and just pencil in Vladimir Putin.