SMOOTH OPERATOR Ukrainians Say FBI Questioning Them About Paul Manafort's Past

[DonViejo]

Members of parliament and government agencies in Kiev have been investigating Trump’s former campaign manager for years. Now, they say, the feds are getting interested.

ANNA NEMTSOVA
SPENCER ACKERMAN
05.26.17 2:29 AM ET

KIEV—The Ukrainian parliamentarian Mustafa Nayyem says the FBI has come to him at last, asking about Paul Manafort, who had a long record as a political operative serving pro-Russian figures here before he became the campaign manager for Donald Trump last year.

Nayyem and other Ukrainian officials say they are not only willing to cooperate with the FBI, they have been trying to do that for years, but only recently did American law enforcement show any interest.

For its part, the FBI declined to comment on what now is an ongoing inquiry headed by its former director and now special counsel, Robert Mueller. But there is little question that Manafort is at or near the center of the narrative it is putting together about Russian interference in the U.S. presidential elections and the extent of collusion, or not, between Moscow and members of Trump’s campaign team.

Much of this is, and likely will remain, murky. It is sometimes hard to distinguish at this juncture between what Manafort taught the Ukrainians and Russians, and what he may have learned from them as he helped elect Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency here in 2010, then allegedly helped to sow disastrous political divisions after Yanukovych was deposed in 2014. The use of bots to flood messages onto social media, for instance, was a major feature of Russian-backed actions in Ukraine. So, too, in the United States. That does not mean Manafort was involved in either of those bot storms.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/26/ukrainians-say-fbi-questioning-them-about-manafortat-last