Paul Manafort

Paul Manafort is a longtime Republican consultant. In mid-2016 Manafort served for several months as the campaign chairman for presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Mary Jacoby and Glenn Simpson

Wall Street Journal correspondents Mary Jacoby and Glenn Simpson reported a consultant to John McCain hired a public-relations firm to improve the American image of a Ukrainian political party backed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to documents filed with the Justice Department. The lobbying firm of Davis Manafort Inc. arranged through an affiliate for the public-relations firm's work in the spring of 2008, at the same time Davis Manafort was being paid by McCain's presidential campaign. The firm is co-owned by lobbyist Rick Davis, manager of Sen. McCain's presidential campaign, and Republican strategist Paul Manafort.

Trump-Russia collusion hoax

Robert Mueller (right) colluding with Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich (left). Mueller served as an errand boy for Hillary Clinton to build goodwill with Vladimir Putin for the Russian Reset. The Russian Reset was a pause in tensions for the Uranium One deal. The Clintons personally took $500,000 from Russian oligarchs in the Uranium One bribery scandal, which Mueller likewise had to sign-off on.

During the Republican National Convention in 2016 Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post wrote a piece entitled, Trump presidency could destabilize Europe. The issue, she explained, was Trump’s positive attitude toward Putin. “The extent of the Trump-Russia business connection has already been laid out, by Franklin Foer at Slate,” wrote Applebaum. She named Carter Page and his “long-standing connections to Russian companies.” Applebaum repeats the debunked notion that the “Trump’s campaign team helped alter the Republican party platform to remove support for Ukraine” from the RNC platform. Maybe, she hints, that was because of Trump aide Manafort’s ties to Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich.

The Manafort-Yanukovich relationship is an important part of the Steele dossier. So is the claim that in exchange for Russia releasing the DNC emails, “the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue.” For Applebaum, it was hard to understand why Trump would express skepticism about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, except to appease Putin. She referred to a recent interview in which Trump “cast doubt on the fundamental basis of transatlantic stability, NATO’s Article 5 guarantee: If Russia invades, he said, he’d have to think first before defending U.S. allies.” The talking points come directly from Hillary Clinton's opposition research, FusionGPS and the Steele dossier.

In 2017 Manafort was indicted by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller in the Trump-Russia scam. Manafort was indicted for FARA violations and influence peddling in conjunction with the Podesta Group. The activities took place primarily during Hillary Clinton’s State Department years. Nothing in the indictments related to President Trump.

On February 22, 2018, a grand jury issued a superseding indictment for Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. The superseding indictment does not include any reference to the Trump campaign, including no mention of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

See also

• John Podesta
• Andrew Weissmann
• Mary Jacoby
• Oleg Deripaska
• Lisa Page