Paul Manafort: Trump Campaign Chairman Under Investigation by Federal Agencies

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Photo: Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

The day before the Inauguration, January 19, 2017, The New York Times reported that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, was under investigation by multiple federal agencies:

• Central Intelligence Agency
• National Security Agency
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Director of National Intelligence
• Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department

The article asserted that the investigations were based on intercepted Russian communications and financial transactions.
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Manafort worked for the Trump campaign for only a few months, from early spring 2016 until August. He steered the Trump campaign through the Republican National Convention and the nomination. In August, when a ledger was found in Ukraine showing payments to Manafort by deposed president Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Kremlin leader who raided the country’s coffers before fleeing in February 2014 and settling in Russia.

Yanukovych's mansion in Ukraine. Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

Manafort was a business partner of Trump longtime friend Roger Stone. The two had a lobbying firm from 1980 until 1996, when Manafort left to form Davis, Manafort, and Freedman.
Manafort clients have included the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush and Robert Dole, as well as a number of dictators – Jonas Savimbi of Angola, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. He has lobbied for a number of countries – Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, and Nigeria. His work for regimes accused of human rights abuses has led Manafort’s firm to be among “the top five lobbying firms receiving money from human-rights abusing regimes” in the Center for Public Integrity report The Torturer's Lobby.
The New York Times reported in August 2016 that the Ukrainian government is also investigating Manafort in connection to $12 million in money that he received as payment from deposed president Viktor Yanukovych, which was likely stolen from taxpayers. Manafort denies being paid by Yanukovych, even though his firm worked for Yanukovych from 2006 and 2012.
While Manafort worked for Yanukovych, he purchased at least four pieces of real estate in the U.S., worth a total of $11 million. Since 2012 Manafort has taken out 7 home equity loans, worth about $19.2 million, on three New York properties owned by holding companies registered to Manafort and his son-in-law Jeffrey Yohai. (In 2016 Yohai’s limited liability corporation declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.)
Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign in August in the wake of the reports of ties to Yanukovych and his Kremlin-connected kleptocratic regime in Ukraine. Trump campaign team members have told reporters that Manafort remained a consultant to Trump after the announcement of his resignation.
 
The August 2016 New York Times article about the ledger can be found here.
 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html?_r=1

The January New York Times article can be found here.
 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html

The report from the Center for Public Integrity can be found here.