WASHINGTON — In 2012, Paul Manafort had a problem. He was seeking a way to bolster the interests of his pro-Russian Ukrainian clients in Washington, but he did not want to set off federal lobbying rules that would force the disclosure of detailed information about the funding for, and targets of, that work to the Justice Department. His solution, federal prosecutors say, was to help those clients create a nonprofit group in Brussels. He then recruited a pair of top lobbying firms to represent the group, an arrangement he hoped would allow the evasion of the disclosure rules. But even some people at the lobbying firms he recruited saw the nonprofit group, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, as a sham, according to new evidence laid out by prosecutors when they unveiled a plea agreement with Mr. Manafort in federal court in Washington on Friday.

Source: New York Times September 15, 2018 02:40 UTC