A former Russian spy was pressuring former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort over debts he owned to a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign, Time magazine reported Saturday.
Victor Boyarkin, the former spy, appears on the latest list of Russians sanctioned by the American government on December 19. But Time had been looking into him for months, and when the magazine caught up with him last fall he explained Manafort "owed us a lot of money" — about $19 million, according to Boyarkin — "And he was offering ways to pay it back."
Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, the man to whom Manafort reportedly owed the $19 million, hired Boyarkin to collect.
"I came down on him hard," Boyarkin, told Time. But Manafort wasn't forthcoming.
That was until Manafort became the Trump campaign's unpaid adviser. At that point, Manafort sent several emails offering "private briefings" about the race to Derispaka in an effort to "get whole," according to the report.
Since appearing on the sanctions list, Boyarkin has clammed up to Time, and has reportedly told Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office, which has sought to question him on possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, "to go dig a ditch."