Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, owed as much as $17 million to pro-Russia groups before joining Trump’s team last year, The New York Times reports. Citing financial records obtained in Cyprus—where Manafort held bank accounts while working as a political consultant in Eastern Europe—the report says the money was owed by shell companies tied to Manafort’s business. One Cyprus company allegedly tied to Manafort owed a total of $7.8 million to a business affiliated with Russian oligarch and Putin ally Oleg V. Deripaska, who previously sued Manafort on claims he owed $19 million as part of a failed investment. Another $9.9 million was owed to a company apparently linked to a Ukrainian lawmaker from the pro-Russia Party of Regions. The financial statements gave no indication the loans had been repaid as of December 2015, the Times reports. Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, dismissed the report’s findings, saying the Cyprus financial records are “stale and do not purport to reflect any current financial arrangements.”
Read it at The New York Times
