While it remains too early to tell, the first moves under the new regime have largely shown an investment in conventional campaigning.
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Manafort, who resigned Friday as chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign, isn’t the focus of the investigation, according to the US official.
In a statement, Trump says Manafort offered his resignation Friday morning.
Trump, in a statement, praised Manafort’s work on the campaign and called him a “true professional”.
News of the possible investigation into Manafort comes the same day the political operative left the Trump team.
Rose said fundraising problems – rival Hillary Clinton continues to handily outpace Trump – and plunging poll numbers, as well as a steady stream of news stories about Manafort’s lobbying activities in Ukraine and Russian Federation, convinced Trump that “this is going nowhere and needs a reset”.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, followed by running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, emerges from his plane as he arrives to tour the flood damaged city of Baton Rouge, La., Friday, Aug. 19, 2016. Ted Cruz, Trump is far from her flawless candidate, based on the description she gave of her ideal Republican nominee in a speech she gave at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January 2015.
Conway told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Trump personally chose to express “regret” over comments that may have offended people during a Thursday evening rally in North Carolina. Although he was working for a candidate who pegged himself as an outsider, Manafort was known among the Washington establishment for having advised other GOP presidential nominees including Ronald Reagan, John McCain, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
Manafort worked with Kremlin-backed Yanukovych for a decade, helping him win presidential elections in 2010 that tilted Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit until a 2014 revolution ousted him from power. Manafort did not publicly declare his role as a lobbyist of a foreign power, which is a felony under federal law.
Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank, said Trump still had some time to turn around his campaign, noting the news of the shakeup came as many Americans were enjoying summer vacations.
But his departure from Trump’s staff is likely to cause a “ripple effect” as staffers loyal to Manafort are reassigned – or leave.
In another sign of a new direction in the campaign, Trump on Thursday made an unusual admission of regret for some of his past comments.
Trump’s son, Eric Trump, said unflattering headlines about Manafort had taken a toll.
The Clinton camp dismissed it as “teleprompter regret”.
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Trump, 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. Manafort deserves credit for making needed important campaign changes, Schlapp said, but “this is go time”.
