We know that Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign manager has been raided by the FBI. They were looking for evidence about the Russian attack on the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. What we did not realize is that this is not the first time the FBI has been on his case.
Paul Manafort was interviewed by the FBI years before he jumped into Trump’s politics. He gave away this information when he submitted a court filing to have the FBI’s evidence removed, according to The Washington Post.
In the latest raid, the FBI was looking into three types of apps. Unfortunately, the G-men redacted what those three types were. Of course, they were looking into any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
 It seems the investigators were looking for information surrounding the June 2016 meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Manafort attended. Okay, but what were the earlier FBI interviews about?
BuzzFeed News reported that one of those meetings occurred in 2014. Manafort’s court filings also indicated that the FBI interviewed Manafort in the previous year, looking at his Ukraine consulting.
The former Trump campaign chair worked as a high-level political consultant to Ukraine’s leader, Victor Yanukkovych. The FBI requested documents encompassing that period, but Manafort never complied.
Both Manafort and his business associate, Rick Gates, have been indicted for bank fraud and money laundering in regard to their Ukraine consulting. Mueller flipped Gates, who pled guilty, and he is now a witness for the state.
Manafort has remained silent, even though he has been under house arrest and has worn two separate ankle monitors to make sure he stays within his home.
At the height of Trump’s presidential campaign, his chairman stepped down. The problem was that his international lobbying, especially in Ukraine, hit the news stands. It seems, he earned over $12 million from Yanukovych’s party, plus he did not fill out the forms required by the U.S. government for offshore lobbying.
Manafort claimed he was innocent of all charges, both prior to the Trump campaign and during it.
To read the full court filing, click on this link.
Featured Image via Bloomberg Twitter Page.