Paul Manafort, Creature of 'The Swamp'
Government prosecutors rested their case yesterday in the high-profile tax- and bank-fraud trial of former Trump presidential campaign chief Paul Manafort. To an outside observer, it may have looked like the prosecution’s argument rested on Manafort’s failure to file taxes for millions in income, or the misleading statements he made applying for bank loans. But this is only part of the story. Looming large in the background is Manafort’s work on behalf of pro-Kremlin Ukrainian political elites in the now defunct Party of Regions and his business and lobbying relationship with Putin’s close associate, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
In the first case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his mandate in the wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, testimony from more than two dozen witnesses depicts Manafort leading an extraordinary lifestyle. Most incredibly, Manafort managed to keep up his man-about-town habits even after the consulting fees collected from his client and former Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych evaporated when Yanukovych fled to Moscow in the wake of the Maidan revolution.
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