Trump campaign manager was Kashmir lobbyist

WASHINGTON: A known Republican political consultant and a top campaigner to Donald Trump used to lobby for the US-based group Kashmiri American Council (KAC), according to the US court and lobbying records.

Paul Manafort, who's now running the campaign for Donald Trump, was part of the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly that was apparently paid 700,000 dollars by the Kashmiri American Council between 1990 and 1995.

Court records show that Manafort's Kashmiri lobbying contract came on the FBI's radar during a lengthy investigation that linked the Kashmiri group to Pakistan's intelligence agency to secretly influence US policy towards the disputed territory of Kashmir, says a 'Yahoo News' report. The KAC was shut down by the authorities in 2011 when its head Ghulam Nabi Fai was arrested and pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

The website's report also quoted a former senior Pakistani official saying that "there was never any doubt on Pakistan's part that Manafort knew of his government's role in backing the Kashmiri council." The former official who was not identified in the report also said that during a trip from Islamabad in 1994, he met with Manafort and Fai in Alexandria, Virginia, to "review strategy and plans" for the council. "There is no way Manafort didn't know that Pakistan was involved with the council," the former official was quoted.

Manafort did not comment but his former partner Charlier Black responded to the website's request saying that the Kashmiri council was a domestic, not a foreign, client. "Nobody was more surprised than me that the guy was taking the money from Pakistan," Black said, adding, "We didn't know anything about it."

Exactly what Manafort did for the Kashmiri council is unclear from the sketchy lobbying reports his firm filed with the secretary of the Senate, according to the news item. "Those reports show his firm first registered as lobbyists for the group in October 1990, the same year the group was grounded by Fai. The reports list little beyond the purpose of the lobbying: to seek support for a House resolution by then -Rep. Dan Burton to sponsor a "peaceful resolution" of the Kashmir dispute. They also show payments to the firm of 140,000 dollars a year," the website said.

Manafold and his firm also lobbied for Philippine President Ferinand Marcos, and Zaire's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. He also advised Ukraine's then prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, which raised concerns within the Bush White House that Manafold was undermining the US foreign policy.