14/06/17 13:47

Paul Manafort is a well known GOP operative with a long career in politics domestically and globally. Starting in the 1970s, he worked as an advisor to the Presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Robert Dole and John McCain. In April 2016, Manafort was tapped to manage the Trump campaign and transition it from a winning primary to an equally successful general election. It didn’t quite work out that way for Manafort. The campaign suffered from infighting, a candidate that refused to be “tamed” and lack of organizational structure. He was forced to resign in August 2016 after a secret ledger surfaced in Ukraine.

The secret ledger, found at the burned down villa of the deposed Ukrainian President Yanukovych, showed Manafort had been paid 12.7 million in cash illegally from 2007-2012 for his efforts to influence Ukrainian politics in favor of the Kremlin. It was also later reported that he had received $10 million annually by a Russian Oligarch Oleg Derispaska to boost the interests of Vladimir Putin in former Soviet republics and positively influence U.S. politics in Putin’s favor. The financial arrangement dates back to 2006 and lasted at least through 2009. The same year Manafort buys a condo in Trump Tower in an all cash deal. Manafort recently confirmed his work with Oleg Deripaska, but denies he was acting for Putin’s benefit.

Paul Manafort, the infamous Roger Stone and Donald Trump have been acquainted for years. In the 1980s, Manafort was a partner in a lobbying firm called Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly or BMSK. While at that firm, the client list included; Ronald Reagan, dictators Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Jonas Savimbi of Angola and American businessman Donald J. Trump. At the time, BMSK represented Donald Trump’s lobbying efforts to build and operate casinos. It was Roy Cohn, Trump’s “mentor” that introduced Roger Stone, Manafort to Trump.

In June 2017, the Associated Press reported that Robert Mueller the special counsel investigating Trump campaign collusion with Russia, initiated a separate criminal investigation into Manafort. In all of the years of lobbying and consulting for foreign countries, Paul Manafort never registered as a foreign agent as is required by Foreign Agents Registration Act enacted in 1938. As of this writing, we do not know the specific crimes being investigated by the special counsel.

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