Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
TRUMPSKI IS OUR BOYSKI
On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office used for years by Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for Ukraine’s ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still there as recently as May.
Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Manafort’s main client, Viktor Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Manafort from Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.
In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies that helped members of Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles, including a palatial presidential residence with a private zoo, golf course and tennis court.
Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
While working in Ukraine, Manafort had also positioned himself to profit from business deals that benefited from connections he had gained through his political consulting. One of them, according to court filings, involved a network of offshore companies that government investigators and independent journalists in Ukraine have said was used to launder public money and assets purportedly stolen by cronies of the government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html