Manafort had $60M relationship with Russian businessman: report

President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort had much stronger financial ties to a Russian oligarch than previously thought, according to a new report.

NBC News reported Friday that Manafort is linked to a previously unreported $26 million loan from a company owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to the Kremlin.

The new figure brings the total of Manafort’s business dealings with the Russian figure to around $60 million over the past decade, NBC reported, citing financial documents filed in Cyprus and the Cayman Islands.

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According to documents obtained by NBC, the funds were transferred from Deripaska’s company to several entities linked to Manafort that are registered in Cyprus.

The news comes one month after it was revealed Manafort was wiretapped by the U.S. government during and after the 2016 campaign under a warrant allegedly focused on his work consulting for the government of Ukraine.

A statement from Manafort’s spokesman to NBC denied that the former campaign chief was indebted to former clients now or while he was a part of the Trump campaign.

“Mr. Manafort is not indebted to former clients today, nor was he at the time he began working for the Trump campaign,” Jason Maloni told NBC News.

A later statement from Maloni to NBC did not include that sentence, according to the network.

Instead, it stated, “Recent news reports indicate Mr. Manafort was under surveillance before he joined the campaign and after he left the campaign.”

“He has called for the U.S. Government to release any intercepts involving him and non-Americans in hopes of finally putting an end to these wild conspiracy theories. Mr. Manafort did not collude with the Russian government,” the statement added.

Manafort is a central figure in the special counsel investigation into ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia. During a no-knock FBI raid in May, prosecutors reportedly told the former Trump aide to expect an indictment.