Harry Reid on Sunday Accused FBI of Having ‘Explosive Information About Close Ties and Coordination Between Donald Trump, His Top Advisors, and the Russian Government’
The FBI has been conducting an inquiry into the foreign business dealings of Donald Trump‘s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, according to a just-released report by NBC News, which cites law enforcement and intelligence sources.
On Sunday Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid in a letter to James Comey had accused the FBI of doing just that – but, unlike Director Comey’s letter to Congress, the FBI has not announced to the public that it is looking into Manafort’s dealings.
“In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity,” Senator Reid wrote to Comey.
“The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.”
24 hours later, that accusation appears to have some substance, according to the NBC News report.
An inquiry is not a criminal investigation, and Manafort denies the claim that he is the subject of an FBI inquiry.
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In August, days before Manafort left the Trump campaign, NBC News reported “that Manafort was a key player in multi-million-dollar business propositions with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs — one of them a close Putin ally with alleged ties to organized crime — which foreign policy experts said raised questions about the pro-Russian bent of the Trump candidacy.”
NBC adds that “Manafort was paid millions of dollars — $12.7 million in cash, according to The New York Times—representing a pro-Russian politician in the Ukraine.”
MSNBC talked with Manafort’s successor, who basically denies everything:
And even Fox News announced the inquiry today:
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