Paul Manafort has had risky relationships for decades. The latest was Ukraine and Viktor Yanukovich. There is no excuse for Trump. Evidently, Mr. Manafort's spokesperson had enough to say to the Grand Jury to convince them of the grounds for indictment. Sorry to hear this is a bad day for Paul Manafort, but, better him than the country.
When it comes to the Trump Campaign, this was not a miss when vetting Manafort. They ignored it.
September 5, 2017
By Maryam Salah
...In the early 1990s, (click here) Manafort’s lobbying firm, Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, worked for the Kashmiri American Council, a group that tried to influence U.S. policy toward the disputed territory of Kashmir. Later, the group, led by Kashmiri native Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, was proven to be a front for Pakistan’s intelligence agency in Washington. The KAC hired Manafort in October 1990, just months after its founding.
Two decades later, the Department of Justice charged and convicted Fai of conspiring to secretly act as an agent of the Pakistani government in the U.S., the result of a long-running investigation. The reason: Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, had been secretly funding and directing the KAC’s work in violation of federal law since its inception.
Over the course of five years, Manafort’s lobbying firm took in $700,000 from the KAC to set up the operation. It was just a fraction of the $3.5 million Fai admitted the KAC received from the Pakistani government between 1990 and 2011, but it came at a crucial time for the organization....
