A senior Russian official on Thursday accused the Ukrainian government of attempting to hurt Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by leaking information about his former campaign manager, according to a Politico report.
“Ukraine seriously complicated the work of Trump’s election campaign headquarters by planting information according to which Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, allegedly accepted money from Ukrainian oligarchs,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said at a press briefing. “All of you have heard this remarkable story.”
A transcript of her remarks was posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website.
Zakharova’s comments refer to a summer New York Times report documenting the existence of a secret ledger kept by the political party of deposed Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych that showed $12.7 million in cash payments earmarked for Manafort. His consulting firm, Davis, Manafort & Freeman Inc., provided political advice to Yanukovych and his now-defunct Party of Regions.
Ukranian officials stressed that Manafort may not have accepted the funds, and he stridently denied receiving any cash payments. Yet he was forced from the Trump campaign shortly after the report was published, along with a number of other articles documenting his ties to pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
U.S. intelligence officials have formally accused the Russian government of hacking and leaking emails from the Democratic National Committee and other prominent Democratic individuals in an effort to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
So now I suppose Russia will invade what’s left of Ukraine for working against the Russian attempts to undermine the Clinton campaign.
Putin sure knows how to play HO like a spinning top - just pull the string. Now when HO’s BFF Putin decides to go deeper into the Ukraine, HO will remember just how much praise Putin and Co heaped on him, how much they tried to protect him from all the meanies and he won’t do a thing about it.
I’m constantly nauseous these days…
Ms. Kirkland, this is from the Politico article you link to. Would this have been useful for TPM readers to know?
Could you give this story more context?
What, that Ukraine, already terrified that Trump has a deal to sell them out to Putin, moved immediately after his stunning, unexpected, completely inexplicable victory to placate a narcissistic authoritarian of a type Ukrainians are already all too familiar with?
Manafort is nose deep involved with Putin’s puppet president and party and with Russia directly. Whether or not they had additional off-the-books payments lined up for him is a matter of whether he’s also corrupt, not one of whether he’s an agent of a foreign power now deep in the counsel of a future president.
I’m sure more context will explain it all away, how Ukraine was trying to unjustly damage Mr. Trump. (So unfair!) But why is Russia so interested in this anyway? I thought only “conspiracy theorists” believe that Russia was trying to influence this election?