Thread by @awprokop

Here’s a thread on a shady little drama in the Manafort / Skadden saga, as laid out in the government’s new settlement agreement with the firm:

assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5687…

The then-government of Ukraine, with Manafort’s help, hired Skadden in 2012 to write a report for them (about the former prime minister’s trial).

They claimed to be paying this top US law firm the absurdly small amount of $12,000.

On 8/09/12, the @KyivPost published an editorial basically saying this was absurd. Someone else had to be secretly paying Skadden. (“Skadden Stink,” was the headline.)

kyivpost.com/article/opinio…

The editorial was right on. In fact, as Manafort had arranged, by this point Skadden had been paid *$4 million* for the work by a Ukrainian oligarch (“Business Person-1”).

The cash came through an entity called “Black Sea View Limited” that had an account at the Bank of Cyprus.

Once the “Skadden Stink” editorial comes out, there’s a freakout at the firm. They think it looks terrible, and want to disclose the oligarch's name.

But Manafort says no. The oligarch wants anonymity.

So a few days later, the partner and Manafort instead start talking about sending a somewhat less absurdly small invoice to the Ukrainian government. A little over a million seemed reasonable.

A problem here is that this would look like a transparent response to bad press coverage, without clearing up where the original money came from.

Conveniently, then, they backdate documents here to *before* the Kyiv Post article raising questions about the money came out.

In the end, Skadden received $4.7M, the vast majority of which came from the oligarch. His identity, as far as I can tell, still hasn't been disclosed.

To update this thread on Manafort and Skadden's Ukraine work, the firm has now named the oligarch they "understood" to be the funder: Victor Pinchuk.

Via @kenvogel

https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1087106256517713920