At his foreign policy speech today, Trump said he’d want to have a closer relationship with Russia.
Is it because Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s chief adviser, reportedly received millions of off-the-books dollars from Ukraine’s pro-Putin political party and had an office in Kiev as recently as May 2016?
Either way, Manafort’s reported ties to pro-Russia factions raise some serious questions:
- Is Manafort still consulting the party and receiving off-books-payments from the party, even as Trump’s begun to receive classified security briefings?
- Should Manafort be barred from accessing classified intelligence, given the possibility of serious conflicts of interest?
- Does Trump himself have deeper, undisclosed ties to Ukraine and Russia? And might the existence of such ties explain his campaign’s push for a pro-Russia GOP platform and shift to pro-Putin talking points on Crimea? (Trump could clear this last one up by releasing his tax returns.)
Paul Manafort and others in Trump’s campaign have repeatedly lied to the media — why should anyone believe Manafort’s dismissal of this weekend’s damning New York Times report as “unfounded, silly and nonsensical“?
Published: Aug 15, 2016