Paul Manafort, a former long-term adviser to exiled Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych and onetime campaign chairman for U.S. President Donald J. Trump, is accused of tampering with witnesses in a series of WhatsApp messages, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller alleges in a June 4 court filing.
Manafort, along with an unidentified accomplice, messaged two former Washington-based colleagues in February 2018 with the apparent aim of convincing them that a lobbying effort on behalf of the Yanukovych administration took place only in the European Union, and did not extend to the United States.
The filing reveals new information regarding the scope of Manafort’s lobbying effort, including an apparent effort to plant an op-ed in the New York Times during the most violent days of the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
Manafort is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, among other white collar criminal charges. His tampering appears aimed at removing at least some of his lobbying allegations from U.S. jurisdiction.
“Basically P wants to give him a quick summary that he says to everybody (which is true) that our friends never lobbied in the US, and the purpose of the program was EU,” wrote a “close confidant of Manafort for years,” identified only as “Person A” in the court filing.
Prosecutors argue that the court should reconsider Manafort’s pretrial release conditions, placing him in jeopardy of spending his time before trial in jail.
The two D.C. lobbyists that Manafort and his associate contacted worked with Yanukovych’s lobbying effort from 2011 to 2014. Manafort hired two D.C. lobbying firms as part of the effort: Mercury Public Affairs and Podesta Group.
In an apparent effort to prove Manafort was lobbying in the U.S., prosecutors released a number of previously unrevealed documents from the public relations offensive which shed light on how Manafort oversaw an effort “to maintain a constant flow of information into Europe and the U.S.” with the aim of legitimizing ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s imprisonment and portraying Yanukovych as a pro-European reformer.
Manafort worked in Ukraine with Rick Gates, a political consultant who pleaded guilty to charges earlier this year apparently in exchange for testimony against his former boss. Manafort denies all wrongdoing.
Hapsburg Group
Manafort’s alleged tampering centers around a 2011 influence operation called the “Hapsburg Group,” in which Manafort organized a group of at least three European politicians to lobby on behalf of the Yanukovych administration.
Manafort convened the “Hapsburg Group” that could “act informally and without a formal government relationship” to “promote the idea of a Ukraine that is closer to Europe than to Russia,” according to a document released in court filings.
News reports, former Yanukovych administration Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, and a U.S. regulatory filing have identified the Hapsburg Group’s key members as former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
One engagement letter with an unnamed lobbying firm that owned the Habsburg Group specified that the effort would “re-position Tymoshenko’s image in Europe from European democrat to populist, failed politician with little domestic support.”
At the time, Ukraine was grappling with the aftermath of Yanukovych’s prosecution and imprisonment of political opponent Tymoshenko, which unleashed severe damage on his government’s image abroad and briefly dashed hopes of further integration with the EU, as European politicians demanded her release. She served more than two years in prison, released only after Yanukovych fled power.
Hiring Western lobbyist firms allowed the Yankukovych administration to subtly push back against accusations of human rights violations.
U.S. campaigning
Documents released by Mueller give instances of lobbying efforts focused on the United States.
In September 2012, the U.S. Senate was preparing a resolution to condemn the Yanukovych government for imprisoning Tymoshenko.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs pushed back against the resolution, enlisting Manafort’s and his lobbying team’s help. The initiative coincided with Yanukovych’s visit to the United Nations General Assembly, making it a potential embarrassment for his administration.
Dmytro Kuleba, then working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and now Ukraine’s permanent representative to the Council of Europe, wrote “the policy of engagement with Ukraine is far more efficient than the policy of alienation of Ukraine” in an email to one of the unnamed D.C. lobbyists asking to arrange a call with a U.S. senator spearheading the resolution.
Kuleba cited a mission by an unnamed Hapsburg Group member to Ukraine as a point that lobbyists could use to dissuade the U.S. Senate from adopting the resolution. At the time, Kwasniewski was heading a European Commission mission to Ukraine regarding the Tymoshenko prosecution.
Kwasniewski has denied any conflict of interest or wrongdoing.
“Paul works through his channels and is sending the same messages. He also supports the above initiative,” Kuleba wrote. “The issue is under Big Guy’s personal control.”
Kuleba declined to comment, citing lack of authorization from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Senator Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, introduced the measure along with Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin.
Through 2013, documents show Manafort and Gates attempting to place Ukraine-related articles in U.S. media, while apparently arranging a March 2013 trip to Washington for a Hapsburg Group member to meet with top congressional officials.
But by the start of 2014, the Yanukovych administration was in serious trouble. The EuroMaidan Revolution that would force him out of power on Feb. 22, 2014, had been simmering for two months. On Jan. 29, Gates emailed a lobbyist about responding to an op-ed in the New York Times criticizing the Yanukovych administration for its violent response to the protestors. Gates suggested having “one of our friends” respond to the piece, focusing on casting a difference between “legitimate opposition and violent thugs” as well as the presence of “violent right-wing extremists.”
In a later email, Gates expresses willingness to renew funding for the authors.
Prosecutors do not specify whether the email exchange led to an op-ed.
But on Feb. 20, The New York Times published an op-ed by Prodi, the former Italian prime minister and member of the Hapsburg Group.
Among other things, Prodi criticized “street thugs” and “violent extremists” for stoking violence.
“Ukraine, this fragile and vital bridge, is in danger of collapsing,” Prodi wrote. “To threaten sanctions, to condone violent extremists in the streets and to ignore Ukraine’s financial troubles – as some European leaders seem to be doing – would be to hasten the destruction of the bridge.”
Prodi did not disclose his payments from Yanukovych-linked lobbying firms in the op-ed.
