After a week of news on Donald Trump Jr. over his meeting with Russians, the heat is back on his father. The real heat, however, is on one of the two other members of the Trump campaign who was also at the June 9 meeting at Trump Tower.
The New York Post reported that the Russian probe, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, included an investigation into the finances of President Donald Trump. The investigation’s roots, however, point to Paul Manafort, former chairman of Trump’s campaign. In 2016, Preet Bharara, the Manhattan U.S. attorney, launched a money laundering probe on Manafort.
FBI gathers evidence
After the launch, agents of the FBI started to gather evidence against the ex-campaign chairman of Trump. In March, however, Trump fired Bharara – who refused to resign – before prosecutors could present evidence to a grand jury of what they discovered against Manafort.
Before he ran the campaign, Manafort was the political consultant for years of the Party of Regions, a political party in Ukraine that is pro-Russia. He was in debt up to $17 million to pro-Russia interests before he joined Trump’s campaign, according to The New York Times. Business ventures of Manafort in Ukraine owed the money to shell companies.
Besides the $17 million debt, a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, claimed in 2015 that Manafort and his partners in a business venture in Ukraine owed him $19 million.
Jason Maloni, a spokesman of Manafort, however, insisted that the ex-campaign chairman of Trump has no debt to the Party of Regions or to Deripaska, even during the time he led Trump’s presidential campaign, CNBC reported.
Crossing the red line
Mueller consolidated Bharara’s investigation which explains why the probe touched on finances, including Trump’s which angered the real estate billionaire.
The special counsel’s team reportedly included in their investigation the purchase by Russians of units in buildings owned by Trump, a Soho development built with Russians, his sales of a mansion in 2008 to a wealthy Russian, and the 2013 Miss Universes beauty pageant held in Moscow.
Trump, in an interview with The New York Times, said that Mueller would be crossing the red line if he investigates Trump’s finances.
“I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia,” the president said. John Dowd, one of the lawyers of Trump, said he believes that the financial transactions of the billionaire are beyond the special counsel’s mandate and not related to the alleged Russian collusion in 2016.
