DISINFO: Evidence in failed Trump-Russia collusion probe was fabricated by Ukrainians
SUMMARY
Earlier this month, investigative US media revealed that a key piece of “evidence” used by the Obama White House to start the FBI probe into possible Trump-Russia collusion in 2016. The so-called “black ledger” of secret cash payments to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort during his work in Ukraine, was a complete fabrication created from scratch by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and leaked to US media in the summer of 2016.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative denying Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and painting Ukraine as a Washington-controlled vassal state.
The "investigative US media" invoked by Sputnik is just one article from February 2020, whose author falsely claims that the ledger "suddenly appeared in Kyiv during the 2016 US election." The article, which is mostly based on older opinion columns by the same author.
The "black ledger" is a handwritten record of illicit payments, totalling over $66 million, which Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych made to a number of his political associates between 2007 and 2012. These documents were uncovered already in 2014 and partially published by a prominent Ukrainian news website in May 2016, whereas the full version was published (not "leaked") by Ukraine's National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) in August that year. Shortly thereafter the documents were examined by The New York Times reporters, who received confirmation of their authenticity from "others in Ukraine who were also named in the ledger."
There is no evidence suggesting that the ledger is a fabrication, much less that it was "created from scratch" by Ukrainian officials to aid the Obama administration in bringing down candidate Trump. Although NABU pointed out that the mere presence of Paul Manafort's name in the ledger does not prove he received any payments from Yanukovych's entourage, two of these payments were later corroborated by the Associated Press. The same news report notes the payments "are unrelated to the 2016 presidential campaign," meaning that the ledger could not have been admitted as evidence in any US proceedings concerning Russian interference in the election.