Tag: Paul Manafort

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Paul Manafort Resigns From Trump Campaign Over Undisclosed Russian Lobby Efforts

Paul Manafort

Well, we all saw this coming, didn’t we?

Paul Manafort, who basically replaced Donald Trump’s first campaign chief, Corey Lewandowski, has resigned from the Trump campaign after being replaced himself by Breitbart News head Stephen Bannon and Republican PR guru Kellyanne Conway.

Oh, plus that little matter of being implicated in multi-million dollar payments for lobbying on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukraine party without properly disclosing those payments.

All of these machinations come as Trump trails Democrat Hillary Clinton in virtually every national poll and in most vital swing states.

From the AP:

Eric Trump told Fox News Friday that Paul Manafort “did a great job with the delegates” ahead of the Republican National Convention last month, and that he resigned earlier Friday because Donald Trump didn’t want to be “distracted by whatever things Paul was dealing with.”

Manafort stepped down in the wake of a campaign shake-up, as well as revelations about his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Manafort’s firm orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s then-ruling political party. Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents, as required under federal law.

The Trumpster issued this statement:

“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign. I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.”

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Trouble Right Here In Trump City – Breitbart Exec Takes The Reins Of Trump Campaign In 2nd Shakeup

Stephen Bannon

Shakeups in political campaigns never mean things are going great.

So take the news that Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, becoming the new Trump campaign chief executive as a red flag.

We’ve heard rumblings that Trump’s crew couldn’t reign the Trumpster in, and we’ve also read numerous reports of the Donald resisting his approach to the campaign trail singing the classic, “I gotta be me.”

Cue the new team.

From the New York Times:

Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, will become the Republican campaign’s chief executive, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster for Mr. Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, will become the campaign manager.

Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, will retain his title. But the staffing change, hammered out on Sunday and set to be formally announced Wednesday morning, was seen by some as a demotion for Mr. Manafort.

Conway told reporters Wednesday morning that the moves weren’t so much a “shakeup” as they are an “expansion” for this phase of the general election.

In related news, more stories continue to dog Paul Manafort about his financial connections and payments of unreported millions to Washington lobbying firms.

Donald Trump’s campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party’s efforts to influence U.S. policy.

The revelation, provided to The Associated Press by people directly knowledgeable about the effort, comes at a time when Trump has faced criticism for his friendly overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It also casts new light on the business practices of campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Under federal law, U.S. lobbyists must declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders or their political parties and provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

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Trump Campaign’s Paul Manafort Listed In Ukraine Ledgers As Receiving Millions

So, here’s a question: if Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager was found to be accepting millions from Russian and Ukraine election officials, would the Trump campaign go wild about that?

Well, funny thing is – it’s actually the reverse. The name of Paul Manafort, campaign chairman for the Trump campaign, reportedly appears in handwritten ledgers which detail a series of payments including $12.7 million to Manafort.

From CNN:

The investigation is looking into “shadow accounting” and potentially illegal payments made by Yanukovich to Manafort and other Ukrainian election officials, according to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption.

The announcement of the investigation follows a report published late Sunday by The New York Times, which first revealed that Ukrainian investigators had found Manafort’s name included in an off-the-books, handwritten ledger detailing a series of secret payments — among them, a $12.7 million payout to Manafort.

In a statement released Sunday evening, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said, “On the eve of what the Trump campaign has billed as a major foreign policy speech, we have learned of more troubling connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine.”

Predictably, Manafort denies the reports.