Manafort, who joined the Trump campaign in March, served as campaign chairman from May until his resignation in August. (Matt Rourke/AP)New corruption allegations lodged in Ukraine against President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, have thrust Manafort back into the forefront of ongoing scrutiny over whether the Trump team coordinated with the Russian government to influence the U.S. election. The spectacle in Kiev came just hours after FBI Director James B. Comey confirmed the existence of a federal probe into possible connections between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. Manafort resigned as Trump’s campaign chairman in August, after the New York Times reported that his name appeared in a “black ledger” that showed he was paid $12.7 million in secret cash payments from Yanukovych’s party. The Ukraine corruption investigation is related to the broader counter­intelligence investigation into alleged contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian officials, these people said.

Source: Washington Post March 22, 2017 00:33 UTC