U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign aides in 2012 reportedly fought the release of Ukrainian political leader Yulia Tymoshenko when she was in jail.
The Associated Press reports that a consulting firm run by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates was working for Ukraine's Party of Regions and directed a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort between 2012 and 2014 that undercut U.S. public support for Tymoshenko, though she was considered a political prisoner by the United States and European governments at the time.
Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign last week amid revelations about his undisclosed lobbying for the Ukrainian party and Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by a popular uprising in 2014.
Gates continues to serve as Trump's campaign liaison with the Republican National Committee.
Tymoshenko, who was Ukraine's prime minister from 2007 to 2010, was jailed on embezzlement charges following her government's defeat by Yanukovych in 2010.
