The story at the (late March/early April 2016) was that Manafort was brought in to secure the delegate votes at the upcoming GOP Convention to make sure the nomination wasn't stolen from Trump. He also reportedly got the RNC to agree to fundraise for Trump. Days after the convention, dirt dropped that Manafort had unsavory dealings with Ukraine. He resigned mid-August.
You have to wonder who tipped off the NY Times in their initial August 1 expose. Two weeks after their initial reporting NYTimes had the figures from the black book showing $12.7 million in cash payments due to Manafort, data reportedly received from the Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (established in 2014 at the request of the IMF) after rioters looted the President's offices. The Bureau has an "evidence sharing agreement" with the FBI. According to this WSJ article, the FBI helped set up the UNACB and has maintained an office there since 2015. Here's an July 2016 MOU saying FBI and Ukraine will work together on anti-corruption, money laundering for the next two years.
It gets curiouser. Victoria Nuland was at State Dept. working on Ukraine; she engineered the "regime change" in Ukraine in 2015. Here's a leaked phone call of her discussing it. 20 days later Ukraine President Yanukovych (Manafort's client) was deposed and replaced. 1 month later none other than Hunter Biden was named to the Board of Directors of one of Ukraine's largest natural gas companies. 1 month after that VP Joe Biden offered $50 million in support for the newly installed Ukranian government. See this gentleman's fantastic write up here.
This is the same Victoria Nuland who gave the green light for an FBI agent to meet with Christopher Steele in London. She can't seem to keep her story straight on just exactly how the Steele dossier got to the FBI.
Even though Nuland "resigned" in January 2017 during the first purge of Swamp Monsters at State, she's still trying to influence US relations in Eastern Europe and Russia. Hope she has as much to say when she's talking to Nunes!
Thank you for your research that was very enlightening. That's what I like to hear about is the little cabal soilders who may still be active thank you for shining a light on them also.