CLEVELAND, Ohio - After initially not disclosing who paid him to give speeches in 2017, former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich filed an amended ethics disclosure showing he was paid $20,000 by a group sympathetic to the Syrian government.

Syria's President Bashar Assad has been accused by multiple intelligence agencies of using chemical weapons on his own people in the long-running Syrian Civil War.

The revelation comes when Kucinich has been dogged by his connection to Assad, whom he met with in 2017, in the gubernatorial race. Kucinich, a longtime critic of American involvement with foreign conflict, has questioned whether Assad used chemical weapons.

Kucinich's ethics filing shows a payment of $20,000 from the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees. Paul LaRudee, treasurer for the organization, described the group as an umbrella nonprofit for other nonprofit organizations.