A Kyiv court ruled Wednesday that two Ukrainian officials meddled in the 2016 American presidential election by releasing information about illegal cash payments made to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The ruling, first reported by the Kyiv Post, implicates anti-corruption director Artem Sytnyk and parliamentarian Serhiy Leshchenko.
The officials "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort’s surname and signature were found in the so-called “black ledger” of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post reported.
That "black ledger," the report noted, was a key piece of evidence that led to both Manafort's corruption sentences in Ukraine and the end of his time as Donald Trump's presidential campaign chairman.
Sytnkyk and Leschenko "led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state" by releasing the black ledger information, the Kyiv court's press service reported.
