Paul Manafort plea deal casts new scrutiny on lobbyists he hired

An employee at one of the firms, the Podesta Group, referred to the European Center for a Modern Ukraine in an email as the "European hot-dog stand for a Modern Ukraine"

In 2012, Paul Manafort had a problem. He was seeking a way to bolster the interests of his pro-Russian Ukrainian clients in Washington, but he did not want to set off federal lobbying rules that would force the disclosure of detailed information about the funding for, and targets of, that work to the Justice Department.
 
His solution, federal prosecutors say, was to help those clients create a nonprofit group in Brussels. He then recruited a pair of top lobbying firms to represent the group, an arrangement he hoped would allow the evasion of the disclosure rules.
 
But even