REPEAT MISTAKE? Paul Manafort said to be RETURNING to Trump campaign
You may remember back in the dark days of the last administration when Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump, was arrested in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion probe.
It was Manafort who led Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and appears in the Mueller Report linking the campaign to Russian disinformation and election interference efforts. Ultimately, however, his conviction was for bank fraud and other financial crimes, rather than for the collusion itself, after Manafort took money from pro-Russia political figures in Ukraine.
Now, it looks like Manafort could be returning to Trump’s team for another round as the desperate ex-president fights to regain power ahead of four criminal trials on nearly 90 felony charges.
Insiders are saying that this role could become visible around the July Republican National Convention when delegates are expected to formalize Trump’s nomination for the presidency.
The possibility of Manafort’s return is raising alarm bells after Trump gave public warnings against “flipping” during Manafort’s trials and later gifted him a pardon, and as the multiply-indicted former president continues to pour worship and praise on his Russian dictator pal. Washington Post reports:
“Trump has told advisers that he feels loyal to Manafort because he served prison time, and Manafort has continued to stay loyal and praise Trump in public and private appearances. The former president still often complains about the Mueller investigation, people close to Trump say, and contends the prosecution of Manafort was unfair.”
During Trump’s presidency, Manafort admitted that he had lied under oath while being questioned in the Russian collusion investigation. Trump’s defenders continued to lie, claiming that the investigation concluded there was no collusion, and that it exonerated the then-president. The Senate Intelligence Committee found otherwise in its own investigation of the matter.
In the end, it was not the behind-the-scenes agreements, but the financial crimes stemming from them, that sent Manafort to prison. The ABA Journal reported during the prosecution:
“Manafort had been accused of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for the government of Ukraine and its former pro-Russian president. Manafort allegedly used offshore accounts to hide income from the representation, cheating the United States out of more than $15 million in taxes.”
In 2020, Trump issued a slate of pardons to his allies, including Manafort and Roger Stone (also indicted for lying about facts in the Russian investigation).
Manafort had already been moved from prison to home confinement, thanks to COVID-19 concerns, and issuing the pardon, Trump’s White House declared him a victim of “blatant prosecutorial overreach,” and of “perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American history,” according to NPR.
While many people support the hiring of former felons who have paid for their crimes by serving out the sentences meted out to them, one must remember that Manafort never completed his sentence due to Trump’s pardon.
That fact — and the danger inherent in Manafort’s prior relationships with Russian intelligence agents — makes his return to the Trump campaign a dangerous national security issue that cannot be swept under the table.
It’s obvious that loyalty to Trump is the most important factor in the former president’s hiring decisions. It’s that sort of misplaced priority that should convince the majority of Americans that Donald Trump should never set foot anywhere near the White House again.
