Prosecutors have described what they believed was a 'scheme' to help former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort get 'cash' for his pro bono work on Trump's campaign.
WASHINGTON — Recent court filings from special counsel Robert Mueller shed new light on a mysterious payment to lawyers for Paul Manafort, the onetime chairman of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
These relationships have drawn fresh scrutiny in recent weeks. Both Manafort and another key figure in this story, Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, were among 81 individuals and entities that received formal document requests on Monday from the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating a broad range of potential presidential misdeeds.
To run the group, Manafort tapped an old friend, Connecticut-based lobbyist Laurance"Laury" Gay. A former official in President Ronald Reagan's administration, Gay went on to work at Manafort's lobbying firm in the late 1980s. He is also the godfather to one of Manafort's daughters. Faced with mounting legal bills, Manafort reached out to Gay in June of that year and asked him to arrange a $125,000 payment to Manafort's lawyers, according to both prosecutors and Manafort's defense attorneys. Rather than give Manafort the money himself, however, Gay called someone else.
In order to get the $125,000, Gay reached out to someone else, whose name is redacted in court filings. Prosecutors described the person as having"a long relationship" with Manafort. Manafort's defense attorneys said the person had"been a vendor on all these campaigns [Manafort has] used in the past."
At first glance, MMSC appears to be a small, two-man shop with no obvious ties to Manafort or anyone else with whom Manafort has"a long relationship." Moreover, there are no signs that either of the principals at MMSC was ever"a vendor on all these campaigns [Manafort has] used in the past," which is how Manafort's lawyers described the person who ran this firm.
Again, MMSC is the acronym for Multi Media Services Corporation. Two political operatives who spoke to CNBC referred to the firm by its acronym. Below is a photo of the transfer record. Legal experts also told CNBC that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what Fabrizio appears to have done, namely, use money from a firm he controls to make a payment on someone else's behalf.
Since then, Fabrizio has also done work for some of Manafort's most controversial clients. In 2012 and 2013, foreign lobbying records show that Manafort paid Fabrizio $278,000 for work Fabrizio did to help Manafort's political clients in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the fact that Trump had hired a pollster at all was newsworthy, coming, as it did, after months of the candidate insisting that political pollsters were a waste of money.
Two weeks after Manafort hired Fabrizio to poll for the campaign, Manafort and longtime Trump ally Tom Barrack set up the Rebuilding America Now super PAC so they could raise millions at a time from wealthy GOP donors to help Trump, who was reportedly growing tired of spending his own money to fund his campaign.
The letter goes on to say:"this includes, but is not limited to, voter data, polling information, political ad targeting, voter registration rolls, social media data, and campaign or party e-mails." The individual also described a financial relationship between MMSC and Rebuilding America Now that was more complicated than it initially appeared in the campaign finance reports that the super PAC submitted to the FEC.
During the 2016 presidential race, potential donors to the PAC also reportedly questioned the rates, along with other elements of Rebuilding America Now's spending. But"if Gay and Rebuilding America Now knew that 3 percent of all commissions paid to Multi Media Services Corporation would be routed back to Gay, those transactions should have been reported to the FEC as payments to Gay" and not merely as commissions to MMSC, said Brendan Fischer, director of the federal reform program at the nonprofit watchdog group The Campaign Legal Center.
But the alleged existence of a secret commission split wasn't the only thing about the relationship between MMSC and Rebuilding America Now that experts said raises questions about where donors' money was actually ending up. Records show that Rebuilding America Now reported the $800,000 it received in May and June as media reimbursements. This helps to explain why the money does not appear to have raised any red flags so far with the FEC, even though several other aspects of the PAC's finances have prompted the FEC to formally request additional information or corrections.
"It's also odd to see even numbers" like $150,000 and $25,000 in ad reconciliations, she added."Depending upon the channel that you're purchasing ads on, it's not typical that your costs are that even." Yet the same qualities that make the February payment appear run-of-the-mill, experts said, are what make the May and June payments look so unusual.
Yet one thing is clear from the PAC's financial reports: In the year that followed these three unusual cash transfers from Fabrizio's firm to Rebuilding America Now, no one took home more of that money from the PAC, in consulting fees and expenses, than Laurance Gay. "The advantage that we bring, without compromising any of the boundaries, is we know how Manafort thinks. I've done over 40 campaigns with Paul," Gay told Politico in the summer of 2016.
Added together, the expenses and fees that Gay took home from Rebuilding America Now in the 18 months after 2016 equaled $924,164.03. This is very close to the combined total of $925,000 that was paid to the super PAC and Manafort's lawyers by Fabrizio's firm, MMSC, in May and June 2017. Yet despite spending money to buy Facebook ads, to pay Gay $35,000 a month and to pay other consultants and lawyers, Rebuilding America Now effectively stopped raising any money after the 2016 election, and only spent money.
As of March 6, the Rebuilding America Now Facebook page was still active, however, and it linked to the nonexistent website. CNBC sent a message to the Facebook page but has received no response.
इंडिया ताज़ा खबर, इंडिया मुख्य बातें
Similar News:आप इससे मिलती-जुलती खबरें भी पढ़ सकते हैं जिन्हें हमने अन्य समाचार स्रोतों से एकत्र किया है।
February had highest total of undocumented border crossers in 12 yearsThe number of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern US border last month was the highest total for February in 12 years, according to new statistics released by Customs and Border Protection. - JuliaEAinsley
और पढो »
Highest February total of undocumented border crossers in 12 yearsBREAKING: Number of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern US border last month was the highest total for February in 12 years, according to new statistics released by Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday. - JuliaEAinsley
और पढो »
Hillary and Bill Clinton think Bernie Sanders can’t beat Trump in 2020, still bitter over 2016: reportThe public tension between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders persists the 2016 primary, but the private resentment reportedly runs deeper.
और पढो »
Judge sentences Trump ex-aide Manafort to nearly four years in prisonPresident Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for financial crimes uncovered during Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia probe.
और पढो »
Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager, faces likely prison term at sentencingPaul Manafort, who guided President Trump’s campaign through the tumultuous Republican National Convention in 2016, faces a potentially stiff prison sentence for a raft of financial crimes that were prosecuted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
और पढो »
Ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months for fraud in Mueller case'He has lived an otherwise blameless life,' the judge said of Manafort, a central figure in the special counsel's Russia probe.
और पढो »