To the list of activities attracting the attention of prosecutors, President
Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort just added a new one: editor.
Oleg Voloshyn, a former spokesman for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, said in an interview that he drafted the unpublished editorial that U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller accused Manafort on Dec. 4. of ghostwriting in order to influence public opinion about his work in Ukraine. Voloshyn said he wrote the piece on his own initiative. He said he sent it to Manafort only to check facts and incorporated a few of his suggestions.
It’s a violation of a court order for Manafort to try the case in the press, prosecutors say. Mueller is now seeking to deny Manafort’s bid for freedom from house arrest before his trial because of the editorial. More broadly, the dispute reveals how close Manafort remains to former colleagues in Ukraine, where he worked for a decade reaping millions of dollars in payments that are now subject to legal scrutiny.
Voloshyn said he was shocked to see his unpublished opinion piece spark the latest controversy in Mueller’s case against Manafort, who has been charged with conspiracy to launder money and acting as an unregistered agent for Ukraine. Voloshyn said that he sent his unpublished editorial last week to Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate of Manafort in Ukraine, who then forwarded it on to Manafort.
"He just advised me to add that the Yanukovych government also worked actively with the U.S. on nuclear disarmament and with NATO,” Voloshyn said of Manafort. “And since I knew of that as well, I agreed those could be valuable contributions to strengthen my message.”
Voloshyn said he asked the press service of the Opposition Bloc, a political party that Manafort had worked for in Ukraine, to send the editorial to the English-language
Kyiv Post. The Opposition Bloc grew out of the Party of Regions, which Manafort advised until Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014.
Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni declined to comment.
Brian Bonner, editor of the Kyiv Post, said that he received the editorial on Monday. The newspaper isn’t planning to published the piece, Bonner said, which he called "highly suspicious" and "blatantly pro-Manafort."