Friday, August 19, 2016

Is It Time for John Podesta to Resign as Chairman of the Clinton Presidential Campaign?

Now that Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has resigned, shouldn't John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign also resign?

He is embroiled in the same Ukranian payments scandal that Manafort is and has his firm has just hired legal counsel.

Emails obtained by AP show that Manafort's deputy, Rick Gates directed Washington lobbying firms, Mercury LLC and the Podesta Group Inc., between 2012 and 2014 to set up meetings between a top Ukrainian official and senators and congressman on influential committees involving Ukrainian interests.

At the time, Manafort and Gates were consulting for Yanukovych in Ukraine.

From a Podesta Group statement:
The firm has retained Caplin & Drysdale as independent, outside legal counsel to determine if we were misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine or any other individuals with regard to the Centre’s potential ties to foreign governments or political parties,
BuzzFeed reports:
 The situation has led to direct consequences for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign on Friday.
Experts say the revelations could spell trouble for Mercury and for Podesta Group, which have both previously said they were unaware of Manafort’s work for Ukraine at the time, and that the nonprofit they lobbied on behalf of assured them it was not being directed by Ukraine’s Party of Regions. But they are currently in a gray area...
"It’s hard to say that they weren’t aware that the real principal here for whom Gates was acting was the political party,” said Joseph Sandler, a FARA expert and partner at the firm Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock.
-RW

1 comment:

  1. So that's why Manafort was allowed to resign and the Trump campaign allowed to transition in an orderly manner without constant howls of outrage from media/Never Trumpers/Killary. The nexus of intrigue/corruption involving Ukraine and the Deep State players is really astonishing.

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