The firm headed by Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, made more than $17 million working as a foreign agent of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, according to newly filed disclosure reports.

Trump forced Manafort to step down from his campaign last year after The Associated Press reported that Manafort and another Trump campaign official, Rick Gates, had secretly helped the Ukrainian Party of Regions steer money to two Washington lobbying firms through a nonprofit.

Neither Manafort nor the lobbying firms registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents working on behalf of the party at the time. The lobbying firms, Mercury and the Podesta Group, belatedly filed reports in April that detailed their lobbying on behalf of the nonprofit, the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, back in 2012. A Manafort spokesman said at the time that Manafort planned to file similar paperwork.

The filing makes Manafort the second Trump campaign official to retroactively disclose foreign lobbying. Michael Flynn, Trump’s ousted former national security adviser, filed paperwork earlier this year admitting that he had done lobbying that benefited the Turkish government while advising Trump’s campaign.

Jason Maloni, a Manafort spokesman, suggested that what Flynn did was worse. “Paul’s work ended well before he joined Candidate Trump’s campaign,” Maloni said in a statement. “Unlike Flynn, Paul was not simultaneously working as a foreign agent while he was working for Trump.”

Investigators are said to be looking at both Manafort and Flynn as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, led by Robert Mueller.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3661314&forum_id=2#33666741)

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3661314&forum_id=2#33688280)