Did Manafort Use Trump's Campaign to Pay Back Russia?

[DonViejo]

By Jonathan Chait

October 3, 2017
12:32 pm

Before he took control of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort ran a political influence operation in Ukraine. Manafort’s goal in Ukraine was to elect a corrupt, pro-Russian party led by Viktor Yanukovych, and to prevent the country’s government from falling into the hands of pro-Western opposition. Perhaps the darkest read of the Russia scandal is that Trump was an American Yanukovych — a pro-Russian candidate, elected with Russian backing, at the direction of Manafort. That dark scenario is what the recent revelations about Manafort’s role all point to.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that Robert Mueller and congressional investigators had obtained emails recording correspondence between Manafort and representatives of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch. Being a billionaire in Russia is not like being a billionaire in the United States. It requires maintaining an intimate relationship with Vladimir Putin. Their foreign policy dealings do not involve freelancing. When he is dealing with Manafort, Deripaska is doing Putin’s bidding.

In one email obtained by the Post, Manafort asked, “How do we use to get whole?” Manafort’s spokesman tells the Post this means nothing, because “it’s no secret Mr. Manafort was owed money by past clients.” But the known contours of the relationship indicate just the opposite. It is not that Manafort was owed money. It appears Manafort owed the money.

The year before Manafort joined Trump’s campaign, Deripaska filed a complaint in a Cayman Islands court that Manafort had borrowed $19 million from him and failed to account for it, and even hired a private investigator to track down Manafort, who had essentially gone into hiding. Julia Ioffe and Franklin Foer have obtained the emails that the Post reported on earlier. And while the messages are written carefully and frequently encoded — they refer to “black caviar jars” to mean payments, for instance — they indicate that Manafort was trying to impress Deripaska with his work as Trump’s campaign manager.

more
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/did-manafort-use-trumps-campaign-to-pay-back-russia.html

[spanone]

1. K&R...

[BigmanPigman]

2. "Black caviar" and "adoptions" aren't too difficult to see through.

This is one reason Mueller wanted to get Manafort's evidence before he destroyed it. I heard about this last week and thought, "This investigation is going to take forever" since more and more is coming out and that is only what WE know about.