FBI reportedly making inquiry into former Trump campaign manager's foreign ties

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The FBI is taking a preliminary look into the foreign business connections of Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, law enforcement officials told NBC News.

A preliminary inquiry is conducted by the FBI when something warrants scrutiny but not yet a full investigation. Late last week, FBI Director James Comey announced new emails were discovered in connection to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. In a letter to Comey, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid questioned why Comey felt the need to announce the Clinton inquiry, considering he admittedly didn't know if the emails were significant to the case, while sitting on "explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government." The FBI has not commented.

In August, it was reported that Manafort was a major player in business dealings with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, including one who had close ties to Putin and was allegedly linked to organized crime. The New York Times also reported that ledgers showed that a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine paid Manafort $12.7 million in cash. Manafort told NBC News "none of it is true," and he has never had any ties to Putin or dealt with his government. Trump has made many comments in favor of Russia, and has disagreed with the intelligence community, which says Russia is involved with election hacking. "The relationship that Trump's advisors have had with pro-Russian forces are deeply disturbing," David Kramer, a former senior State Department official in the George W. Bush administration, told NBC News in August. "Trump's attitude on Russia is not in line with most Republican foreign-policy thinking. Trump has staked out views that are really on the fringe."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.