Paul Manafort started getting loans from Trump-linked firms on the same day he left the Trump campaign

Stephen Miller, left, and Paul Manafort, in 2016.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Paul Manafort — President Trump's campaign manager from April through late August — said he will retroactively register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for his work in Ukrainian politics, citing advice from federal authorities. But two reports on Wednesday also shed some light on Manafort's murky financial history in the U.S. and abroad.

First, The Associated Press reported that Manafort's political consulting firm in Virginia had received at least $1.2 million of the $12.7 million in secret money apparently earmarked for him by the political party of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in a so-called Black Ledger discovered after Yanukovych's ouster. The money had been wired to Manafort's firms in two installments, in 2007 and 2009, through shell companies in Belize. Manafort, who had previously maintained that the ledger was fake, defended the payments on Wednesday, saying they were legal because they were made through wire transfers not cash, as Ukrainian lawmakers had alleged.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.