The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has launched a criminal inquiry into a disclosure of pretrial investigation data defaming an ex-advisor to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign chief Paul Manafort by certain Ukrainian law enforcement officials, Obozrevatel news website said.
A screenshot, released on August 15, of a part of the document made available to Obozrevatel reveals the storyline of the proceeding opened on August 2: “According to a filing by Ukrainian parliamentarian [Andriy] Derkach, Ukrainian law enforcement officials disclosed pretrial investigation data through publication in mass media of fragments of the entries made on the pages in the ‘Party of Regions’ secret ledgers’ in the name of Donald Trump’s campaign chief Paul Manafort. These data are defaming the man, humiliating his honor and dignity by creating a public impression of illegal interference in the presidential election of the United States of America.”
The criminal inquiry has been launched on the charge of disclosing pretrial investigation data “about interference by individual officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) in the U.S. presidential election in 2016,” the website said.
It was reported that in May 2016 a former first deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Viktor Trepak, passed the Party of Regions’ “black ledger” documentation to the NABU. The papers prove the party’s illegal cash payments to Ukrainian officials and politicians, and to Manafort, who later became head of Trump’s election campaign.
The New York Times later published an article about Manafort’s work in Ukraine, after which he stepped down as Trump’s campaign chief.
In late June 2017 NABU stated that it and the specialized anti-corruption prosecutor’s office were not authorized to probe Manafort’s activities as a political advisor to the Party of Regions.
On July 25, 2017, Trump tweeted about the 2016 election: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign – “quietly working to boost Clinton.” So where is the investigation A.G.?”
Under the Ukrainian Criminal Code article regarding a disclosure of pretrial investigation data by a judge, prosecutor, investigator, interrogator, whether or not directly involved in the pretrial investigation, a data disclosure which defames a person and humiliates his or her honor and dignity, entails a fine of between 100 and 300 nontaxable minimal incomes (Hr 17), or up to two years of correctional labor, or an arrest up to six months with a ban from holding a certain public office or from a certain profession for up to three years.
