Then-Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort talks to reporters at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July 2016. “If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote in the July 7, 2016, email, portions of which were read to The Washington Post along with other Manafort correspondence from that time. There is no evidence in the documents showing that Deripaska received Manafort’s offer or that any briefings took place. Manafort and Deripaska have both confirmed that they had a business relationship in which Manafort was paid as an investment consultant. Former campaign officials said that Manafort frequently told his campaign colleagues that assertions made about him by the press were specious.

Source: Washington Post September 20, 2017 21:05 UTC