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Paul Manafort

American political consultant

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.

Paul Manafort at 2016 RNC

Quotes

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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)

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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)

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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

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  • 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...
  • Over the decades, Manafort had cut a trail of foreign money and influence into Washington, then built that trail into a superhighway. When it comes to serving the interests of the world’s autocrats, he’s been a great innovator. His indictment in October... alleges money laundering, false statements, and other acts of personal corruption. ...[H]is personal corruption is less significant, ultimately, than his lifetime role as a corrupter of the American system. That he would be accused of helping a foreign power subvert American democracy is a fitting coda to his life’s story.
  • For more than five years... Paul Manafort, lobbied for a Washington-based group [the Kashmiri American Council]... [charged with operating] as a front for Pakistan’s intelligence service. Manafort’s work... was only one part of a wide-ranging portfolio that, over several decades, included... foreign clients ranging from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and Zaire’s brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, to an Angolan rebel leader accused by human rights groups of torture. His role as an adviser to Ukraine’s then prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, prompted concerns within the Bush White House that he was undermining U.S. foreign policy. It was considered so politically toxic in 2008 that presidential candidate John McCain nixed plans for Manafort to manage the Republican National Convention...
  • Paul Manafort went to work in Ukraine in 2005... A U.S. embassy cable... described Manafort’s job as giving an “extreme makeover” to... presidential hopeful... Viktor Yanukovych, who had the backing of the Kremlin and most of Ukraine’s wealthiest tycoons. His Party of Regions, the cable said, was "a haven" for "mobsters and oligarchs." ...Yanukovych had served jail time in his youth for theft and battery. He also had a hard time speaking Ukrainian... The man paying the exorbitant bills for these efforts was... the coal and metals magnate Rinat Akhmetov. ...[S]ome of Yanukovych’s political patrons were implicated in the murder of Georgy Gongadze... abducted and beheaded [in 2000].
  • Manafort arrived in Ukraine in the wake of the Orange Revolution... doctors determined that Viktor Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin... With guidance from Manafort and backing from Moscow, the Party of Regions made an astonishing comeback over the next five years, culminating in Yanukovych’s successful bid for the presidency in 2010. ...With money from the Party of Regions and its... backers, [Manafort] hired lobbyists in Washington to spin the imprisonment of [former Prime Minister] Tymoshenko as an example of Ukraine’s commitment to the rule of law. ...Such services did not come cheap... with payments worth $12.7 million designated for [Manafort] between 2007 and 2012. The indictment... claims Manafort and an associate laundered the proceeds of his work in Ukraine through offshore accounts, and failed to pay U.S. taxes on the income.
  • 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)

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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.
  • When people think of Washington corruption, they think of organizations like Black, Manafort & Stone, that shook down dictators, took all their money, and then tried to take America's government and make them serve the dictator's interest. You know, it is the swamp.
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