The lobbying firms the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs are the unnamed companies in the grand jury indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, according to three sources with knowledge of the investigation.
The indictment, unsealed Monday, refers to "Company A" and "Company B" as the firms Manafort and Gates solicited in 2012 to lobby on behalf of the Ukranian government. Company A is Mercury Public Affairs and Company B is the Podesta Group, the sources said...
The Podesta Group previously withheld from disclosing its work under the Foreign Agents Registrant Act (FARA), claiming they believed the group was not affiliated with the Ukrainian government.
According to the indictment, the lobbying firms were paid $2 million from offshore accounts controlled by Manafort.
Their work included lobbying "multiple members of Congress and their staffs about Ukraine sanctions, the validity of Ukraine elections" that the reasons for imprisoning Yulia Tymoshenko, the political rival of Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych...