Yesterday, June 15, 2018, Paul Manafort, former Trump Campaign Manager, went to jail, his bail revoked by a judge for persistent lying and tapering with witnesses. Last night, he spent the first night of many (his trial will occur in September) on a prison cot that has reported to be crawling with roaches.
Will he turn?
As we speculate what he might talk about with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller, keep this fact in mind - Paul Manafort hand-picked Mike Pence for Vice President.
Manafort was then Trump's spokesman about that choice.
Here was the New York Times' report on July 15, 2016:
Reached by phone on Friday, Mr. Manafort said Mr. Trump had never wavered on Mr. Pence once the decision was made. Any queries about Mr. Pence as a political choice, he added, simply reflected Mr. Trump's loose conversational style.
"Once he made the decision, nothing changed," Mr. Manafort said. "Last night, the only issue from the time of the Nice tragedy to the time he got on a plane at around midnight was the details of how we rescheduled things."
The take-away is that, in the Trump campaign, Manafort was the man to see on Pence.
Manafort was Trump's Campaign Manager Trump for 144 days, from March 29, 2016 to August 19, 2016.
Manafort also worked, from the 1980s on, for the client he called "Donald"—who relied on Manafort as his fixer for some of his problematic gambling and real-estate situations.
On July 12, 2016, Manafort told this on All Things Considered (NPR),
MANAFORT: You will see if you do any fact-checking that I was the person that negotiated the framework which is based upon which Ukraine is now a part of Europe. That was my role. That's what I did, and when it was completed, I left.
The same NPR show reported this about Manafort's history with the GOP and with Trump :
He was hired by Scott Reed, Bob Dole's campaign manager, to run the '96 convention.
[Scott] Reed further noted that Manafort has an apartment at Trump Tower in New York. But more importantly, he and Trump were peers.
Reed said," He's the one person in the room that calls him Donald. It's not Mr. Trump. It's Donald."
Manafort was “family," not as Trump lied yesterday, “Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign." Washington Post, June 15, 2018
Trump then added that he felt "a little badly" that prosecutors were targeting the longtime Republican operative for actions taken more than a decade ago. Here are Trump's full remarks with his multiple lies.
"You know, Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time," Trump said, before ticking off other Republican presidential nominees with whom Manafort has been affiliated. "He worked for Ronald Reagan, he worked for Bob Dole, he worked for John McCain or his firm did. He worked for many other Republicans. He worked for me for what? For 49 days or something? A very short period of time." [Again, Manafort was Trump's Campaign manager for 144 days.]
On October 30, 2017, the day Manafort was indicted on 12 counts of money laundering involving at least $18 million, setting up secret overseas bank accounts through which $75 million flowed, lying to federal authorities, and operating as unregistered foreign agents for the government of a Ukrainian leader who is linked with the Russians, John Nichols reminded us of Manafort's role in the Trump campaign:
“It was Manafort who brought Pence, the scandal-plagued and politically vulnerable governor of Indiana, who had backed Texas Senator Ted Cruz in that state's Republican primary, into consideration as a vice-presidential prospect for Trump.
Referring to Trump, Manafort explained last summer that "I brought him in to meet Pence." That manipulation, said Manafort, fostered the notion that Pence "had value to Trump as a potential VP nominee."
In the same article Nichols made clear - “But the Manafort-Pence connection was about more than just introducing Trump to a Republican stalwart the fixer had known for many years. Veteran Republican strategist John Weaver says, "Remember, Manafort selected the VP and was therefore the most important person in the campaign."
Nichol's article in the Nation is entitled Manafort Monday Turns Into a Very Bad Day for Trump—and Mike Pence, with the subtitle, Paul Manafort put the Trump-Pence ticket together and maintained ties to the veepeven after leaving the campaign) by John Nichols in the Nation.
A CBS Report, entitled Donald Trump offered Chris Christie vice president role before Mike Pence, sources say offered the same analysis:
“ Manafort had arranged for Trump to meet with his first choice for the job on July 13: Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Afterwards, the plans was for Trump and Pence to then fly back to New York together and a formal announcement would be made, a campaign source said of Manafort's thinking.
What had previously been reported as a "lucky break" by the New York Times was actually a swift political maneuver devised by the now fired campaign manager. Set on changing Trump's mind, he concocted a story that Trump's plane had mechanical problems, forcing the soon-to-be Republican nominee to stay the night in Indianapolis for breakfast with the Pence family on Wednesday morning.
Swayed by Pence's aggressive pitch, Trump agreed to ditch Christie and make Pence his VP the following day, according to a source."
Why did Manafort, who was an unpaid lobbyist for the Ukrainian forces backed by Russia, and who was responsible for the change to the Republican platform on the Ukraine, choose Pence?
What was the connection to Russia in this choice?
What can we expect should Manafort decide to escape his stay in jail?
I don't know but we can be sure not just Trump, but his VP are worrying. And they should.
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June 16, 2018
Post Script. Remember too- in the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort was one of eight people in the room with the Russian lawyer.
