MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th December, 2018) In mid-May 2017, US President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, tried to broker a deal with then president-elect of Ecuador on extraditing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The New York Times reported.
During his visit to Quito, Manafort and Lenin Moreno, who is now the Ecuadorian president, discussed a deal in which the former could arrange certain financial concessions to Ecuador in exchange for the handover of Assange to the United States, the newspaper reported on Monday.
The news outlet alleged that the potential deal was off after Rober Mueller was appointed special counsel to probe Russia's suspected meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, with Manafort being subject to investigation.
Assange, who has been residing in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for years, citing fears that he might be seized and extradited to the United States.
WikiLeaks has released several troves of documents purportedly linked to various US government institutions as well as the emails allegedly from the personal account of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
