Just a few days ago, Manafort saw his official role in the campaign diminished after Trump shook up his staff.
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In a statement Friday morning, Trump said that Manafort offered his resignation.
“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”, Trump said.
Trump aides say the staff changes usher in a greater focus on policy and a more serious tone.
Campaign sources said that Trump had been unhappy with Manafort for a variety of reasons. But his efforts to rein in some of Trump’s most controversial tendencies were seen as a failure. And Trump himself eventually lost confidence in Manafort, believing he was leaking information to the press, according to Barry Bennett, a former campaign senior adviser who continues to support Trump.
“He does not like to be leaked about”.
“I think Donald Trump ought to really investigate this and where his chief adviser, what his association with the Russians are”, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of IL told CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this week.
Earlier this week, Trump brought in a new campaign chief executive and campaign manager following a disastrous stretch in which the New Yorker committed a series of errors and fell behind Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in both national and battleground state preference polls.
On Friday, he also began airing his first television advertisement since becoming the Republican candidate, buying airtime in the crucial states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, where Clinton has already spent of millions in television advertising.
Manafort’s exit is the latest sign that Trump is likely change little from how he ran during the Republican primary.
Manafort is stepping down in the wake of a campaign shake-up, as well as revelations about his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. But the Times reported records of cash payments between 2007 to 2012 that were not previously disclosed.
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”. The paper reported that Manafort is not the target of the probe.
“Paul Manafort’s resignation is a clear admission that the disturbing connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Russian Federation and Ukraine are untenable”, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.
Trump’s supportive comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin had already drawn criticism.
The shock move came just hours after calls by lawmakers in Kiev for Manafort to be questioned by Ukrainian investigators over nearly US$13 million he allegedly received from a secret account for working on behalf of toppled former President Viktor Yanukovych, a lawmaker said.
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Those revelations included an Associated Press report from Thursday, which revealed Manafort’s firm orchestrated a covert USA lobbying operation on the party’s behalf.
