Paul Manafort Popular Books

Paul Manafort Biography & Facts

Paul John Manafort Jr. (; born April 1, 1949) is an American convicted felon who has worked as a lobbyist, political consultant, and attorney. A long-time Republican Party campaign consultant, he chaired the Trump presidential campaign from June to August 2016. Manafort served as an adviser to the U.S. presidential campaigns of Republicans Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bob Dole. In 1980, he co-founded the Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone, along with principals Charles R. Black Jr. and Roger Stone, joined by Peter G. Kelly in 1984. Manafort often lobbied on behalf of foreign leaders such as former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, former dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko, and Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi. Lobbying to serve the interests of foreign governments requires registration with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA); on June 27, 2017, he retroactively registered as a foreign agent.On October 27, 2017, Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on multiple charges arising from his consulting work for the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The indictment came at the request of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. In June 2018, additional charges were filed against Manafort for obstruction of justice and witness tampering that are alleged to have occurred while he was under house arrest, and he was ordered to jail.Manafort was prosecuted in two federal courts. In August 2018, he stood trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and was convicted on eight charges of tax and bank fraud. Manafort was next prosecuted on ten other charges, but this effort ended in a mistrial with Manafort later admitting his guilt. In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Manafort pled guilty to two charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering, while agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. On November 26, 2018, Mueller reported that Manafort violated his plea deal by repeatedly lying to investigators. On February 13, 2019, D.C. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concurred, voiding the plea deal. On March 7, 2019, Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison. On March 13, 2019, Jackson sentenced Manafort to an additional 43 months in prison. Minutes after his sentencing, New York state prosecutors charged Manafort with sixteen state felonies. On December 18, 2019, the state charges against him were dismissed because of the doctrine of double jeopardy. The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's ties to individuals connected to Russian intelligence while he was Trump's campaign manager "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" by creating opportunities for "Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign."On May 13, 2020, Manafort was released to home confinement due to the threat of COVID-19. On December 23, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Manafort.In mid-March 2024, Manafort re-emerged on the political scene, with reports of him potentially joining the Trump 2024 campaign. Early life and education Paul John Manafort Jr. was born on April 1, 1949, in New Britain, Connecticut. Manafort's parents are Antoinette Mary Manafort (née Cifalu; 1921–2003) and Paul John Manafort Sr. (1923–2013). His grandfather immigrated to the United States from Italy in the early 20th century, settling in Connecticut. He founded the construction company New Britain House Wrecking Company in 1919 (later renamed Manafort Brothers Inc.). His father served in the U.S. Army combat engineers during World War II and was mayor of New Britain from 1965 to 1971. His father was indicted in a corruption scandal in 1981 but not convicted.In 1967, Manafort graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School, a private Roman Catholic secondary school, in New Britain. He attended Georgetown University, where he received his B.S. in business administration in 1971 and his J.D. in 1974. Career Between 1977 and 1980, Manafort practiced law with the firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in Washington, D.C. Political activities In 1976, Manafort was the delegate-hunt coordinator for eight states for the President Ford Committee; the overall Ford delegate operation was run by James A. Baker III. Between 1978 and 1980, Manafort was the southern coordinator for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign, and the deputy political director at the Republican National Committee. After Reagan's election in November 1980, he was appointed associate director of the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House. In 1981, he was nominated to the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.Manafort was an adviser to the presidential campaigns of George H. W. Bush in 1988 and Bob Dole in 1996. Chairman of Trump's 2016 campaign In February 2016, Manafort approached 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. In March 2016, he joined Trump's presidential campaign to take the lead in getting commitments from convention delegates. 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.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. 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.In August 2016, Manafort's connections to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian Party of Regions drew national attention in the US, where it was reported that Manafort may have received $12.7 million (~$15.8 million in 2023) in off-the-books funds from the Party of Regions.On August 17, 2016, Trump received his first security briefing. The same day, August 1.... Discover the Paul Manafort popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Paul Manafort books.