U.S. Says Manafort Secretly Paid Ex-EU Leaders to Pitch Ukraine

They were informally called the “Hapsburg group,” a misspelled reference to the monarchy that ruled parts of central Europe through World War I.

Under that umbrella, former European heads of state were secretly paid more than 2 million euros ($2.4 million) by Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, to aid lobbying for Ukraine, according to a superseding indictment filed against Manafort Feb. 23 by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

While none of the former leaders are named in the indictment, other documents lead to:

• Romano Prodi, former prime minister of Italy;
• Alfred Gusenbauer, former chancellor of Austria; and
• Aleksander ...