But Eric Trump, the real estate mogul’s younger son, claimed that his father considered Manafort and the Ukraine allegations a “distraction”. But one thing I can promise you is this: “I will always tell you the truth”.
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Questions have arisen about Manafort’s previous work for the political party of the Kremlin-backed former Ukrainian leader, Viktor Yanukovich.
Another person close to the campaign said Trump had been unhappy with Manafort for a variety of reasons. The hiring of Bannon and Conway, who have been strong voices for Trump not to change, sealed his fate.
But the NY businessman, who has never held elected office, has also been embroiled in a series of controversies in recent weeks and has lagged Clinton in opinion polls.
Clinton leads Trump by 8 percentage points among likely voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday. Some 23 percent would not side with either candidate.
Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman for Breitbart News, is the new campaign CEO, while pollster and consultant Kellyanne Conway is now campaign manager. Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in June, a time at which Manafort ascended to the top of the organization.
Trailing Clinton in national opinion polls, Trump has tried to reset his campaign, announcing on Wednesday a shake-up of his senior campaign staff for the second time in less than two months.
Manafort has come under scrutiny in recent days over his alleged ties with pro-Russian political groups in Ukraine.
“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign”, Trump said in a statement on Friday.
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.
Manafort, in a statement earlier this week, has denied any wrongdoing.
This is about what is best for Donald Trump, what is best for the American people, and what is best to lay out his case that Hillary Clinton is not prepared to be the president of the United States. Russian officials have rejected that accusation.
“Donald Trump on Thursday shelved his guiding mantra – never back down, never apologize – and did what he has refused to do in public in more than a year of campaigning”. The bureau said, however, that it can not prove that Manafort actually received the money because other people including a prominent Party of the Regions deputy signed for him in those entries.
“Too many cooks in the kitchen”, Feehery said.
Late on Thursday, Mr Trump barely touched on immigration during a speech in which he expressed regrets for unspecified past remarks.
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“Believe it or not, I regret it”.
