Paul Manafort

Paul Manafort at 2016 RNC

Paul John Manafort Jr. (born April 1, 1949) is an American former 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 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 J. Stone, joined by Peter G. Kelly in 1984. Manafort is also known for his successful lobbying efforts on behalf of political leaders like Jonas Savimbi and Viktor Yanukovych and foreign dictators such as Ferdinand Marcos and Mobutu Sese Seko.

Quotes

That-that's what he said-I-I-that's what I said-that's obviously what the-our position is.-- Manafort's denial of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia

Interview on NBC News' Meet The Press (July 31, 2016)

Interview on NBC News' Meet The Press with Chuck Todd. Transcript (31 July 2016)
  • Mr. Trump has said very clearly for months now a policy that's been ignored, which is that he believes that we need to have a temporary suspension to stop refugees from coming in from countries where terrorist activities are rampant or in a war. That's the issue, not the Khan family loss which we all regret, not the loss of many other American families which we all regret. The issue is how to protect the homeland. And the second part of the issue which is being ignored is the cause of these losses, because it forced our American military to go back into Iraq, to go into Syria and that cause was the policies that were put together in January of 2009 by President Clinton and Secretary Obama that caused ISIS to rise.
  • Frankly, what Secretary Clinton did in her speech on Thursday was totally ignoring it. She sees an America that, "Morning in America," as she said. It's not morning in America. And if it's midnight in America, like she accused Mr. Clinton of, it's the policies of Obama and Clinton that caused it to be midnight. Mr. Trump has neither position.
  • This is not a temperament issue. The Clinton campaign needs to try to make it into a temperament issue for one reason because they know that over 70 percent of the American people don't believe a thing she says. And so, therefore, her putting up policies that she's going to do have no credibility.
  • Her talking about the Obama Administration has done a great job and deserves an A on the economy. I mean, please, let's talk to American families and sit around the dinner table at night figuring how to pay their bills. The American economy is not in good shape; productivity is failing.

Get Me Roger Stone (2017)

American documentary film written and directed by Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme, released May 12, 2017 on Netflix.
  • Roger's the first one who introduced us to Donald, and Donald was one of our clients at Black, Manafort, Stone in the early 80s and was a client of ours for a long time.
  • What we were doing was sort of trying to use our relationships that we had built up, first through Young Republicans and then through NCPAC, and to create a business that would focus on political consulting.
  • I will stipulate for the purpose of today that, you know, you could characterize this as influence peddling.
    • Note that this clip from the Housing Contracts Investigation, House Government Operations Subcommittee on Employment and Housing, may also be viewed at C-SPAN Moderate Rehabilitation Housing Program (aired Jun 20, 1989) 3:35:43]

Quotes about Manafort

  • Nine months after the Ukrainian revolution, Manafort’s family life also went into crisis. ...[W]hen he called home in tears or threatened suicide in the spring of 2015, he was pleading for his marriage. ...Manafort had rented his mistress a $9,000-a-month apartment in Manhattan and a house in the Hamptons, not far from his own. He had handed her an American Express card, which she’d used to good effect. ...Because he clumsily obscured his infidelity—and because his mistress posted about their travels on Instagram—his family caught him again. ...He entered the clinic in Arizona... according to [his daughter] Andrea’s texts. “...in the middle of a massive emotional breakdown.” ...[B]y the early months of 2016, Manafort was back in greater Washington... He wrote Donald Trump a crisp memo listing all the reasons he would be an ideal campaign consigliere...
  • A lobbyist can perform no greater favor for a lawmaker than to help get him elected. It is the ultimate political IOU, and it can be cashed in again and again. No other firm holds more of this precious currency than the Washington shop known as Black, Manafort. Legally, there are two firms. Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, a lobbying operation... Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, a political-consulting firm, has helped elect... powerful... politicians... The partners... say that the lobbying and political-consulting functions are kept separate. ...Charges Fred Wertheimer, president of the public-interest lobbying group Common Cause: "It's institutionalized conflict of interest." ...The partners charge six-figure fees to lobby and six-figure fees to manage election campaigns. As a result, they take home six-figure salaries. ...They unabashedly peddle their access to the Reagan Administration.
  • As a political firm, Black, Manafort represents Democrats and Republicans alike--and sometimes candidates running for the same seat. ...Stone and Atwater's offices are right across the hall from each other, prompting one congressional aide to ask facetiously, "Why have primaries for the nomination? Why not have the candidates go over to Black, Manafort & Stone and argue it out?"

Get Me Roger Stone (2017)

American documentary film written and directed by Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme, released May 12, 2017 on Netflix.
  • Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and I had worked together through the Reagan campaign. When the Reagan campaign got short of cash, [we] decided to start a political consulting firm. Paul Manafort came in one day and said, "You know we ought to start a lobbying firm, because I'm getting a lot of calls from people who all know we work for Reagan and know the people who are going to be in the Reagan administration, and they want lobbying." So we did.

The Making of Donald Trump (2017)

by David Cay Johnston
  • The hiring of Manafort and others, specifically Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate mogul with mob ties whose 2015 emails indicate that he hoped to help secure both a Moscow-based real estate deal and the American presidency for Trump—showed a disturbing pattern of associations with those around Vladimir Putin, head of the kleptocracy in Moscow...
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