Former Trump aide Paul Manafort received illegal payments from the party of Ukraine's toppled president, a Ukranian lawmaker and journalist said during a press conference in Kiev Tuesday morning, the Washington Post reports.
Serhiy Leshchenko, who additionally called on the FBI to investigate Manafort's financial ties to Russia, released a copy of an invoice printed on letterhead from Manafort's consultation company in Alexandria, Va., dated Oct. 14., 2009, with charges of $750,000 for 501 computers.
Leshchenko called the contract fake as it was charged to a company based in Belize and connected to the party of the former president Viktor Yanukovych, wanted on charges of embezzlement and financial wrongdoing.
Leshchenko also said Manafort laundered the money using offshore accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.
On the same day, according to the Post, a $750,000 entry is listed next to Manafort's name in the "black ledger," considered by Ukrainian anticorruption investigators to be a handwritten accounting book detailing the illegal secret payments of Yanukovych's political party.
A Manafort spokesman told ABC News Tuesday the allegations were baseless, "as reflected by the numerous statements from NABU (National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine) officials who have questioned the validity of the so-called ledger evidence against Mr. Manafort. Any new allegations by Serhiy Leshchenko should be seen in that light and summarily dismissed."
Manafort worked for Yanukovych's Party of Regions for nearly a decade and helped get the pro-Russian candidate elected in Ukraine in 2010. Once Manafort's name surfaced in connection with secret payments totaling $12.7 million by Yanukovych's party, he resigned as Trump's campaign adviser.
Leshchenko urged the FBI to get involved.
"Ukrainian law enforcement bodies "are not able to get this information about banking secrets," Leshchenko said. "And we know that the FBI can get this information. This is the jurisdiction of the FBI and I believe that this investigation will be done by American law enforcement bodies and we will support this."
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