Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort registered as a foreign agent Tuesday for the work his consulting group did on behalf of Ukraine from 2012 to 2014. Manafort becomes the second high-ranking Trump campaign official—along with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who filed for his work with the Turkish government earlier this year—to retroactively register with the Department of Justice under The Foreign Agent Registration Act, which requires U.S. citizens lobbying on behalf of a foreign government to disclose their work.
Manafort’s filing shows his firm earned $17.1 million from 2012 to 2014 for its work for Ukraine’s Party of Regions, the pro-Russia party of then-president Viktor Yanukovych. Other prominent U.S. lobbying groups have also retroactively filed paperwork with the DOJ for their work with Ukraine. Failure to report lobbying work under FARA is a felony, but prosecutions for violations are rare. Instead, those in violation are usually prompted by the DOJ to make disclosures to get on the right side of the law, even if retroactively.
Manafort’s DOJ filing is the latest bit of evidence of the murky financial dealings of Trump’s former campaign chief, who has operated out on the political fringes for years.
