WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort resigned on Friday in the wake of campaign shake-up and revelations about his work in Ukraine.
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FBI and Justice Department prosecutors are conducting an investigation into possible USA ties to alleged corruption of the former pro-Russian president of Ukraine, including the work of Paul Manafort’s firm, according to multiple USA law enforcement officials.
On Wednesday, he appeared to sideline Manafort further in appointing a right-wing news executive, Stephen Bannon, as campaign CEO and promoting veteran pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager.
Earlier on Friday, a Ukrainian lawmaker offered more details of what he said were payments made to Manafort by the political party of the Kremlin-backed former Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich.
Manafort had essentially taken control of Trump’s campaign in June, after a power struggle that led to the ouster of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
In a statement Friday morning, Trump said that Manafort offered his resignation. Ultimately, that says more about Donald Trump than Paul Manafort.
Paul Manafort has been having a awful, no-good, very bad month, and he has now made a decision to throw in the towel as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and chief strategist. “It’s just the beginning”, Mook said in a statement.
The Trump campaign recently began ramping up its operation in OH, a key battleground state, announcing the opening of 16 Buckeye State office, and the hiring of top state-level staff.
The Times report said criminal investigators are separately looking into a network of “offshore shell companies that helped members of Mr. Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles”.
Trump, a Republican, has spoken favourably in the past of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Manafort professed to be fine with the changes, but two days later, he was gone.
Manafort has said he’s “never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment”‘ and that all money paid to him was for work in Ukraine by his political team for functions such as polling and television advertising.
Manafort had been brought in initially at Kushner’s urging, the source said.
Paul Manafort, a Washington insider who had reportedly sought to soften some of the Republican candidate’s more extreme edges, announced that he was resigning. Barry Bennet told The Los Angeles Times that the candidate believed his campaign chairman was funneling information to the media behind his back. And you know that, and I know that, and so I’m very happy having the opportunity to participate through CNN and talk about what I think the campaign is doing right and what they’re doing wrong, both the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign.
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Manafort did not find much success in out-dueling Cruz for delegate loyalties.
