Those Finely Worded Denials Don’t Pass the Smell Test
When Yanukovich found himself in trouble in the uprising against him, Vladimir Putin sent in Russian special forces to rescue him. You don’t do that for just any old guy. Yanukovich says Putin saved his life. Yanukovich is still in Russia, and Putin’s government granted him asylum.
So when Manafort says he has “no connection” to the Russian government, he’s hoping no one remembers his years of service to Putin’s man in Kiev.
This isn’t the first time Manafort has offered a finely-worded denial that left a lot of wiggle room. Back in August, Manafort insisted, “I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.”
As noted above, Manafort had worked for the political party that was running Ukraine, which makes that last bolded part seem like a bit of a dodge. If someone insisted they had never worked for President Obama, but had worked for the Democratic National Committee or Obama for America in 2012, would we have nodded in agreement? In both cases, they’re answering to the president, and it seems reasonable to conclude their viewpoints and interests align.