Paul Manafort faced blackmail over Russia while he was Donald Trump’s campaign manager

| 6:16 pm EST February 23, 2017
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Paul Manafort is one of four Donald Trump campaign advisers who is being investigated by the FBI for colluding with Russian intel officials during the election. He’s also accused of having illegally taken millions of dollars in secret payments from the Kremlin before joining Trump’s campaign. And now it turns out someone with evidence of the latter was allegedly trying to blackmail Manafort while he was serving as Trump’s campaign manager.

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Before joining the Donald Trump campaign, Paul Manafort had worked to get Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych elected as president of the Ukraine. Yanukovych’s reign ended in disaster, as the Ukrainian people ended up running him out of the country. After Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager, the public allegation was made that Manafort had been paid $12 million by the Kremlin to get Yanukovych elected. Shortly thereafter, Manafort was forced out of the Trump campaign entirely.

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But during Manafort’s time as campaign manager, Serhiy Leshchenko – a member of the Ukrainian parliament – is now alleged to have tried to blackmail Manafort by sending a text message to Manafort’s daughter. In the message allegedly from Leshchenko, he revealed that he had evidence of Manafort’s secret payments from the Kremlin, and that he would be turning it over to the FBI unless Manafort gave him some kind of (unspecified) concessions. Leshchenko now claims the text didn’t come from him.

It’s not yet clear if the blackmail text made its way to Paul Manafort from his daughter, and if his actions as Donald Trump’s campaign manager were influenced by the blackmail attempt. But this blackmail incident, which has been reported today by Politico, represents yet another unnerving connection between the Trump campaign and the ongoing battle between Russia and the Ukraine.

This comes just four days after the New York Times revealed that the Kremlin attempted to nudge Trump into blackmailing the current Ukrainian president three weeks ago, raising the specter of just how deep this spy novel runs. Contribute to Palmer Report