Trump had planned to retain Manafort as campaign chairman, but the veteran consultant opted to leave instead.
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“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign”, Trump said in a statement. “I wish him the greatest success”, Trump said.
Manafort had faced questions about his ties to the now-disgraced Russian-backed former president of Ukraine after The New York Times publicized documents related to a government corruption investigation. Manafort has vehemently denied the allegations. It wasn’t long before Manafort’s influence grew, and by June, he was effectively in charge of the campaign, hoping to position Trump as a competitive general-election candidate.
The Clinton campaign looked to use Manafort’s resignation to tie Trump and Vladimir Putin together. Manafort had said on several occasions he didn’t plan to be paid for his work for Trump.
While his work just before the primaries was praised, the recent appointment of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon as CEO of the campaign was seen by many as a move that spelled trouble for Paul Manafort due to their contrasting views on how the Republican candidate for president should present himself.
Manafort installed many of his associates in the upper echelons of the campaign, signaled his support for an allied super PAC and crushed attempts to embarrass Trump at the Republican convention in Cleveland.
The revelations from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) on August 18, 2016 were followed on August 19 by claims by a top lawmaker that Paul Manafort lobbied in favour of a pro-Kremlin party even after a February 2014 pro-EU revolt had pulled Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit. Emails obtained by The Associated Press shed new light on the activities of a firm run by Donald Trump’s campaign chairman.
Meanwhile, Trump made a rare act of contrition on Thursday, saying he regretted offending people with his harsh way of speaking. “I regret it”, he said, “particularly where it may have caused personal pain”.
But law-enforcement officials cited by CNN said that neither Manafort nor his firm were the focus of the investigation, which also is examining possible irregularities at the Podesta Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm led by Tony Podesta, and other consulting firms.
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Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said Trump still had some time to turn around his campaign, noting the news came as many Americans were enjoying summer vacations.
