Manafort Told Feds About Don Jr’s Secret Meeting With Russian Lawyer

Is Manafort the Key?

The nation was stunned one month ago when Donald Trump Jr. posted emails detailing his previously-secret 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, Jared Kushner, several Russians known to the Trump family, and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The New York Times was about to break the story but Trump Jr. posted the emails in a failed attempt to show there was nothing untoward about the meeting.

Now, according to Bloomberg News, it turns out that federal law enforcement, likely the FBI, knew about that meeting, thanks to Paul Manafort himself.

On Wednesday news broke that two weeks ago the FBI conducted a pre-dawn no-knock raid on one of Manafort’s homes, just one day after he met with intelligence committee staffers. 

And it seems that one way or another, Manafort is a source of a good deal of information.

“U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller is bearing down on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as he directs a wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election,” Bloomberg reports Thursday.

“In fact, Manafort had alerted authorities to a controversial meeting on June 9, 2016, involving Trump’s son Donald Jr., other campaign representatives and a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton, according to people familiar with the matter. The president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were dragged into the matter as details repeatedly emerged that contradicted the initial accounts of that meeting.”

Manafort’s ties to Russia and the Ukraine appear to be catching up with him.

RELATED: NYT: Trump Manager Manafort Listed as Recipient of $12 Million in Secret Cash Payments From Ukraine

“Federal investigators have been examining allegations that Manafort laundered money from Russia Eastern Europe through New York real estate, according to two sources familiar with that inquiry,” Raw Story adds.

“Special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating those transactions, along with the purchase of Trump properties by wealthy Russians over the past decade and disgraced national security adviser Mike Flynn’s foreign entanglements.”

The Bloomberg report notes that Mueller is not the only one investigating Trump’s former campaign chairman.

“Those circling Manafort include various congressional committees, the New York Attorney General and the Manhattan District Attorney. The New York authorities are examining an unusual combination of mortgages and loans assembled by Manafort.”

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Wednesday night discussed how the raid went down:

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