CNN reports that Trump announced Manafort’s resignation in a statement today.
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“Despite the latest staff shake-up, Trump’s campaign still maintains strong ties to Russian Federation and pro-Kremlin elements”.
Yet an emerging difficulty was that, when not working on Republican campaigns, Mr Manafort and public relations firms he has been associated with worked for a lot of unsavoury foreigners-including an impressive roster of African tyrants and kleptocrats, such as Siad Barre of Somalia and Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, and, latterly, the pro-Russia political party of the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukyovych.
Manafort has had an easy rapport with both Conway and Bannon in meetings this week but was inclined to leave to give them room to develop and execute their own strategy, the aides said.
Controversial Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort has resigned his position.
Trump has the Breitbart vote. Some 23 percent would not side with either candidate.
Kellyanne Conway, new campaign manager for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016. Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in June, a time at which Manafort ascended to the top of the organization. Trump praised Manafort’s work on the campaign and called him a “true professional”.
Manafort did work for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine before he joined the Trump campaign, and some pointed fingers at him as Trump seemed to adopt pro-Russian rhetoric.
Meanwhile, new documents released by Ukrainian anti-corruption investigators appear to link the lobbying work the men directed in the U.S.to handwritten entries in ledgers listing $12.7 million in cash payments alongside Manafort’s name.
Manafort has denied allegations that his work in the Ukraine involved any illegal or unethical activity. On Monday, in response to an earlier media report that carried the allegations, he issued a statement in which he said he had “never received a single “off-the-books cash payment” as “reported” by the ‘The New York Times, ‘ nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russian Federation”.
In addition to Manafort, Bloomberg reporter Kevin Cirilli sends word that Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates has also left the campaign.
With just under three months to go until Election Day, Manafort’s departure reflects the shifting power centres of the Trump campaign.
A person who answered a telephone number for Manafort said Manafort was not available for comment.
Conway also said that Trump “may” reach out to the Khan family personally. Rarely do presidential campaigns wait to advertise, or undergo such leadership tumult, at such a late stage of the general election.
“It takes a lot of strength to say, ‘I’m sorry, ‘ to admit – not that he was wrong, but he wished he hadn’t done it”, said Cindy Ammons, 70, a Trump supporter from Spindale, North Carolina. The FBI, Justice Department and State Department declined to comment.
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Trump said Thursday night that, if elected, he will ask senior officials in his administration not to accept speaking fees, for five years after leaving office, from corporations that lobby “or from any entity tied to a foreign government”.
