Two Ukrainian officials meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by leaking a secret ledger showing $12.7 million in payments between Ukraine’s ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a Ukrainian court said Wednesday.
The Kyiv district court ruled that National Anti-Corruption Bureau Director Artem Sytnyk and legislator Serhiy Leshchenko broke the law by revealing that Manafort’s name and signature appeared on the ledger.
The disclosure “led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state,” the court said.
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The story, first published by The New York Times in August 2016, came amid mounting chaos in the Trump campaign and contributed to Manafort’s ouster as campaign chairman.
At the time, Manafort denied the allegations but the Associated Press later confirmed that at least $1.2 million of the $12.7 million in alleged payments was deposited in an account tied to Manafort’s political consulting firm.
Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office convicted Manafort in August on charges that he hid approximately $60 million in income from the IRS, much of it derived from his political consulting work for Yanukovych in Ukraine.
