Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, has resigned, the campaign announced in a statement Friday.
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Once Trump’s top strategist, Manafort’s resignation came at the end of a week in which his name also was connected to the handwritten ledger describing cash payments from Ukraine’s then-governing political party.
One recent report alleged that Manafort facilitated an illegal payment from a nonprofit to two lobbying firms “in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party’s efforts to influence US policy”. He was removed from day-to-day management of Trump’s campaign on August 17 but retained his title until August 19, when Trump issued a statement via his official website in which he described Manafort as “a true professional”.
FILE – In this July 17, 2016 file photo, Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland as Rick Gates listens at back left.
“I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process”. Another alleged that Manafort received $12 million in secret payments from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and that he helped stage pro-Russia protests in the Crimea 10 years ago.
The emails obtained by AP were sent by Gates to Vin Weber, the head of Mercury’s Washington office, and to Michael McSherry, a Mercury lobbyist who Politico reported was tapped earlier this month for a senior position in Trump’s campaign. Trump’s decision to tap Stephen Bannon, a combative conservative media executive, as his new campaign chief suggested to some that he might continue the divisive rhetoric that has angered minorities and alienated large swaths of the general election electorate.
Manafort was a controversial figure almost as soon as he came on board the Trump campaign in March. The fall of Yanukovich’s government due to claims of corruption and close ties to Russian Federation led to Russia’s eventual invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea.
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The Podesta Group was co-founded by Tony and John Podesta, who now serves as campaign chairman for Clinton. Recent reports have scrutinized Manafort’s business ties to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. Manafort denied the allegations, first made public in a New York Times report on Monday, but a Ukrainian member of parliament corroborated the newspaper report on Friday.
