Another person close to the campaign said Trump had been unhappy with Manafort for a variety of reasons.
Advertisement
The resignation of the seasoned Republican strategist Paul Manafort – under fire for his pro-Kremlin ties and role in a Ukrainian corruption scandal – represents the Republican nominee’s latest effort to get back on track after weeks of crisis.
People with direct knowledge of Gates’ work told the AP that, during the period when Gates and Manafort were consultants to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, Gates was also helping steer the advocacy work done by a pro-Yanukovych nonprofit that hired a pair of Washington lobbying firms.
In response to a report in the New York Times on Monday, Manafort denied any impropriety in a statement.
His new team now faces the task of allowing him to be himself while making sure he stays on message – attacking Democratic rival Hilary Clinton instead of sparking controversy with his own verbal missteps.
The head of Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Artem Sytnyk, confirmed this week that more than US$12 million (RM48.2 million) had been unofficially earmarked for Manafort from 2007 to 2012, although it remains unclear whether he received any payment.
Trump, who has been accused of offending Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, the disabled and fellow Republicans such as John McCain during his 14-month presidential campaign did not specify which comments he regretted and said at one point that journalists have often taken him “out of context”. Manafort has now “resigned”, but Trump’s own praise of Putin and his invitation to Russian hackers to conduct espionage against the US remain. He said he and Manafort had introduced the advocacy group to the firms and sometimes consulted with the firms on Ukrainian politics, the report said.
“I think my father didn’t want to be, you know, distracted by, you know, whatever things that, you know, Paul was dealing with”, Eric Trump told Fox News, while also praising Manafort’s work for the campaign.
“The firm has retained Caplin & Drysdale as independent, outside legal counsel to determine if we were misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine or any other individuals with regard to the Centre’s potential ties to foreign governments or political parties”, the statement read.
While it remains too early to tell, the first moves under the new regime have largely shown an investment in conventional campaigning.
The group paid at least $2.2 million to the Washington firms to push positions favorable to the party from 2012 until 2014, when Yanukovych was ousted and fled to Russian Federation, the AP said, citing sources. “I have never received a single “off-the-books cash payment” as falsely “reported” by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russian Federation”, he said.
It’s the second high profile departure from the top of Trump’s campaign structure after campaign manager Corey Lewandowski left the operation earlier this summer.
The lobbying also included attempts to gain positive press coverage of Ukrainian officials and efforts to undercut sympathy for Yulia Tymoshenko, an imprisoned rival of then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
The emails do not describe details about the role of Manafort, who was Gates’ boss at their firm, DMP International LLC. The Ukrainian leader eventually fled the country in February 2014 during a popular revolt prompted in part by his government’s crackdown on protesters and close ties to Russian Federation.
Advertisement
The decision to bring aboard Breitbart executive Steve Bannon as his chief executive was greeted with a mix of surprise and curiosity, a Trump specialty, and an expectation of scorched-earth tactics.
