Trump aide’s name surfaces in Ukraine corruption probe: The New York Times

Corruption investigators in Ukraine say an illegal, off-the-books payment network earmarked US$12.7 million in cash payments for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort, The New York Times reported on Monday.

It is not clear if Manafort actually received any of the money designated for him from 2007 to 2012 while working as a consultant for pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych’s party, the Times said. Manafort issued a statement vehemently denying any wrongdoing.

“The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, non-sensical and silly,” the statement said, according to NBC News.

Manafort’s name appears 22 times in 400 pages of handwritten Cyrillic taken from ledgers found at the headquarters of Yanukovych’s Regions Party, the Times said. The article includes a scan of one of the pages. Those assigned payments totalled US$12.7 million.

The ledgers were obtained by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators say the network was used to raid Ukrainian assets and influence elections while Yanukovych was in power.

Yanukovych was ousted in a 2014 pro-Western revolt, after which Russia seized the Crimean peninsula, fuelling a separatist uprising in the country’s east which has claimed some 9,500 lives.