Chairman of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign
In February 2016, Manafort approached
Donald Trump through a mutual friend,
Thomas J. Barrack Jr. He pointed out his experience advising presidential campaigns in the United States and around the world, described himself as an outsider not connected to the Washington establishment, and offered to work without salary.
[34] In March 2016, he joined
Trump's presidential campaign to take the lead in getting commitments from convention delegates.
[35] On June 20, 2016, Trump fired campaign manager
Corey Lewandowski and promoted Manafort to the position. Manafort gained control of the daily operations of the campaign as well as an expanded $20 million budget, hiring decisions, advertising, and media strategy.
[36][37][38] Like most hires in the Trump campaign, Manafort was not
vetted.
[27]
On June 9, 2016, Manafort,
Donald Trump Jr., and
Jared Kushner were participants in
a meeting with Russian attorney
Natalia Veselnitskaya and several others at
Trump Tower. A British music agent, saying he was acting on behalf of
Emin Agalarov and the Russian government, had told Trump Jr. that he could obtain damaging information on
Hillary Clinton if he met with a lawyer connected to the
Kremlin.
[39] At first, Trump Jr. said the meeting had been primarily about the Russian ban on international adoptions (in response to the
Magnitsky Act) and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton; he later said the offer of information about Clinton had been a pretext to conceal Veselnitskaya's real agenda.
[40]
In August 2016, Manafort's connections to former
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovychand his pro-Russian
Party of Regions drew national attention in the US, where it was reported that Manafort may have received $12.7 million in off-the-books funds from the Party of Regions.
[41]
On August 17, 2016, Donald Trump received his first security briefing.
[42] The same day, August 17, Trump shook up his campaign organization in a way that appeared to minimize Manafort's role. It was reported that members of Trump's family, particularly Jared Kushner who had originally been a strong backer of Manafort, had become uneasy about his Russian connections and suspected that he had not been forthright about them.
[43] Manafort stated in an internal staff memorandum that he would "remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision".
[44] However, two days later, Trump announced his acceptance of Manafort's resignation from the campaign after
Steve Bannon and
Kellyanne Conway took on senior leadership roles within that campaign.
[45][46]
Upon Manafort's resignation as campaign chairman,
Newt Gingrich stated, "nobody should underestimate how much Paul Manafort did to really help get this campaign to where it is right now."
[47] Gingrich later added that, for the Trump administration, "It makes perfect sense for them to distance themselves from somebody who apparently didn't tell them what he was doing."
[48]
Kurdish independence referendum
In mid-2017, Manafort left the United States in order to help organize the
Kurdish independence referendum, something that surprised both investigators and the media.
[49]Manafort returned to the United States just before both the start of the
2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict and his indictment.
Lobbying career
In 1980 Manafort was a founding partner of Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone, along with principals
Charles R. Black Jr., and
Roger J. Stone.
[3][4][5][50]
Now...how long do you think they’ve REALLY known each other.
