Trump’s former campaign chairman may be returning
Former President Donald Trump appears to be getting the band back together as advisers say he is determined to rehire Paul Manafort, according to the Washington Post.
The Post reported that Trump appreciates Manafort’s loyalty to him, even while in prison. Trump is now likely to hire Manafort for a role at the Republican National Convention this summer in Milwaukee.
But it’s been a couple of years since Manafort has been a public player, so let’s get a refresher on the longtime Republican Party campaign consultant, former lawyer, lobbyist and convicted felon.
Manafort grew up in a political family in a Connecticut town where his father served three terms as mayor, USA TODAY previously reported. He earned undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University.
Republican politics quickly became Manafort’s focus. Among other roles, he coordinated President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign in the South.
After that, Manafort co-founded one of the most influential political consulting groups in Washington. The firm had some controversial clients, including Zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
After Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed prime minister Viktor Yanukovych was defeated in the aughts, Manafort began to work with Yanukovych to restore his image. He succeeded: Yanukovych was voted back into power in 2010 before being ousted again four years later.
When Manafort pitched his campaign services to Trump, he touted his international experience, saying in a letter obtained by The New York Times that the fact he hadn’t worked for the “political establishment” since 2005 left him free of “Washington baggage.”
As chairman of the Trump campaign in 2016, Manafort guided the former president to the White House, making Trump the fourth Republican president he helped win office.
But in 2017, during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Manafort was indicted on charges related to his political consulting work in Ukraine, where it was alleged that he received millions of dollars from a pro-Russian political faction. Prosecutors said he cheated banks and the government, USA TODAY reported at the time, and spent his illicit fortune on expensive houses and suits. It was a dramatic downfall.
In 2019, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
The following year, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found that Manafort’s role as Trump’s campaign chairman and ties to people affiliated with Russian intelligence “represented a grave counterintelligence threat” during the 2016 presidential race.
Nonetheless, less than two years after Manafort was sentenced to prison, Trump pardoned him along with many other allies.
Now Manafort seems set to help at the Republican National Convention even as there are reports of continued international consulting, which he has denied.
His role could include campaign fundraising. As of early April, President Joe Biden’s campaign was far ahead in cash.