Paul Manafort’s own daughter questioned the legality of his Kremlin paychecks
Days ago it was revealed that a Ukrainian politician had tried to blackmail Paul Manafort while he was Donald Trump’s campaign manager, due to his earlier alleged payouts from the Kremlin, by sending text messages to Manafort’s daughter Andrea. Now she’s been dragged further into the fray, as hackers have revealed that Andrea had severe misgivings about the morality and legality of what her father was doing.
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Andrea Manafort appeared to have a low opinion of both her father Paul Manafort and Donald Trump while they were working on the 2016 campaign together, describing them as a pair of “power-hungry egomaniacs” in one of the text messages she sent to her sister. She went on to question the compensation which her father received while running the Ukrainian campaign of Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych, stating her view that Paul’s “work and payment in Ukraine is legally questionable” and referring to it as “blood money.”
She appears to be referring to the $12.7 million in cash which Paul Manafort was allegedly paid in secret by the Kremlin while he was running the Yanukovych campaign, although in another text she stated that “He would never have accepted cash.” Evidence of that payout was uncovered in a ledger at Yanukovych’s mansion after he was run out of power by the Ukrainian people, who then searched the premises for evidence of his financial corruption. Manafort has consistently denied he took such payments. However, his daughter’s texts suggest the payments really did happen (just not in cash as previously believed), and that Manafort knew he was breaking the law by taking the money.
These text messages between the Manafort sisters have been documented by Politico, and paint a dark picture of Paul Manafort’s motivations both before and during his time running the Donald Trump campaign. As we reported yesterday, Manafort has already admitted that the blackmail attempt happened, yet he has no explanation for why he didn’t report the matter to the authorities. Help us investigate Trump-Russia!
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