The effort began only days after Paul Manafort resigned as chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in August 2016.
Manafort faced scrutiny for accepting millions in off-book payments from pro-Russian Ukrainian officials — an uncomfortable situation for the longtime lobbyist, since accusations were then emerging that Russia was interfering in the White House race to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.
According to a new bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Tuesday, Manafort began quickly working with a Russian employee based in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on a counternarrative — that it was the Ukrainians who were actually interfering in the U.S. election, not Russia, and that they were framing Manafort to help the Democrats.
That claim has persisted ever since, even after U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials said it had no merit — promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin abroad and President Trump himself at home.