Former European leaders struggle to explain themselves after Mueller claims Paul Manafort paid them to lobby for Ukraine

Drew Angerer/Getty

• President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was charged on Friday with paying European leaders to lobby of behalf of Ukraine, special counsel Robert Mueller alleged.
• The leaders in question, who include former leaders of Austria and Italy, have denied any wrongdoing.
• The leaders were allegedly part of a lobbying group called the Hapsburg Group.

Following special counsel Robert Mueller’s newest indictment on Friday of President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, two former European leaders were shocked to find their names mentioned in the indictment documents, claiming they’d done nothing wrong, according to the New York Times. 

According to Mueller’s indictment, two European politicians were secretly paid around €2 million by Manafort in order to “take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States,” the Times reported. This money was paid during a period when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was inching closer to Europe on several issues. He eventually changed course however, and was ousted in a pro-Western revolution in Ukraine in 2014.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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