Manafort Vowed To Trick ‘Obama Jews’ Into Backing Pro-Russian Stooges
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse for a hearing on June 15, 2018 in Washington, DC. Image by Getty Images
By Josh Nathan-Kazis September 14, 2018
Paul Manafort told his pro-Russian clients that he could get “Obama Jews” to support them by accusing Ukrainian government leaders of anti-Semitism, according to his guilty plea in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal case.
President Trump’s disgraced ex-campaign manager in 2012 vowed to undermine the Ukrainian opposition figure Yulia Tymoshenko by convincing key American decision-makers that she was an anti-Semite, according to the filing, which describes Manafort’s illicit lobbying for the nation’s former pro-Russian president.
Manafort wrote in communications cited in the filing that he would orchestrate accusations that an unnamed member of President Obama’s cabinet had supported anti-Semites by criticizing the mistreatment of Tymoshenko, who at the time was in a Ukranian prison.
“Obama Jews” will pressure the administration to bank Manafort’s client, then-president Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort wrote. “The Jewish community will take this out on Obama on election day if he does nothing.”
Manafort’s exploitation of anti-Semitic theories of Jewish power to gain leverage with his Ukrainian clients was previously unknown. He scored millions in illicit contracts from the pro-Russian Ukrainians, deals that eventually attracted scrutiny from federal investigators.
Manafort worked with an Israeli government official to write a statement condemning support for Tymoshenko, and sought to get it placed in American media.
He appeared to boast of his less-than-savory business style by using ‘Sopranos’-style language.
“I have someone pushing it on the (New York) Post,” Manafort wrote, referencing the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid. “Bada bing bada boom.”
Although he never got that story to run, Breitbart News did publish a 2012 headlined “Jewish Leaders Blame Hillary Clinton For ‘Legitimizing’ Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Party.”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
