A report by the Associated Press says that Paul Manafort, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, secretly proposed a political strategy to benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin and undermine his opponents.
Citing several people familiar with payments to Mr. Manafort and business records it obtained, the AP report on March 22 said that the American businessman proposed the plan to Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-connected Russian tycoon, as early as June 2005.
It said the proposed plan was aimed at influencing politics, business dealings and news coverage across the United States, Europe, and the former Soviet Union in ways that would favor Mr. Putin.
Mr. Manafort eventually signed a contract worth $10 million with Mr. Deripaska and had a business relationship with him until at least 2009, AP said.
The report appears to contradict earlier statements by the Trump administration, and Mr. Manafort himself, that he had never worked for Russian interests.
Mr. Manafort, who resigned in August 2016 following allegations of contacts with Russian intelligence officials and of illicit payments related to his previous work for Russia-friendly former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s political party, confirmed to AP that he worked for Mr. Deripaska.
But he said that the work “did not involve representing Russian political interests” and was being unfairly depicted as “inappropriate or nefarious” as part of a “smear campaign.”
In a statement to the news agency, Mr. Manafort said that he represented Mr. Deripaska almost a decade ago “on business and personal matters in countries where he had investments.”
AP said that a spokesman for Mr. Deripaska in Moscow declined to answer questions on Mr. Manafort, though it added that in 2008 a company spokesman said the magnate had never hired Mr. Manafort’s firm.
AP cited a U.S. official as saying on condition of anonymity that Mr. Manafort has been a leading focus of a U.S. intelligence investigation in the United States of the relationship Mr. Trump and his associates have had with Russia.
With reporting by AP.