NYT story on Manafort's Russia ties omits reporting on Clinton's Moscow speech

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Paul Manafort slams report on Ukrainian ties

Trump campaign chairman denies receiving 'off-the-books' payments from Ukraine's pro-Russian political party; reaction from David Catanese, senior politics writer for U.S. News & World Report

The New York Times published an extensive report Monday examining Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work for a pro-Russian party in Ukraine – but despite pointing to it as a “rising issue” in the presidential campaign, glossed over its own past reporting on the Clintons’ Russian connections.

The latest article detailed ledgers purportedly showing more than $12 million earmarked for Manafort by the pro-Russian party. According to the Times, investigators claim they were part of an illicit off-the-books operation, though Manafort denies ever getting such payments.

The Times noted that Manafort’s “involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine” has been reported before – but said American relationships there have emerged as a “rising issue” in the presidential campaign.

Yet the article focused on Trump and Manafort’s ties, without harkening back to another extensive Times report in April 2015 on, among other details, a $500,000 payment to Bill Clinton for a controversial Moscow speech.

The payment came from “a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting” the stock of a company called Uranium One, which reportedly was taken over by the Russians between 2009 and 2013 – and had donor links to the Clinton Foundation.

According to the Times’ own reporting, among other donations, the company’s chairman used his family foundation to direct $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department also was among the agencies to sign off on the Russian takeover of what had been a Canadian company.

The report on the dealings, which Fox News also reported on at the time, was based in part on the findings of Peter Schweizer, author of the anti-Clinton book “Clinton Cash.”

The Clinton campaign at the time pushed back on any suggestion that Hillary Clinton took action to support foundation donor interests, calling the idea “utterly baseless.”