he was convicted of bank and tax fraud in a case that avoided touching directly on the mueller probe. not only pleading guilty to two criminal charges, but agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors probing what president trump did or didn t know about russian interference in the 2016 election. tough day for mr. manafort, but accepted responsibility. paul manafort is significant in this moment in history because he may represent a critical part of the investigation of donald trump and the russian effort to influence the 2016 election. what were paul manafort s contacts and communications with russians during the campaign? i think there s smoke there. and we ll have to find out from the special counsel whether
interviews. he also agreed to testify for the government in court and even to participate in undercover activities. a major victory for the mueller team. huge. and i would capitalize h-u-g-e and add four exclamation points. of interest to prosecutors manafort s tucrump tower meetin in 2016. before, during and after, those events could all lead to a conspiracy with the russians to affect our democratic process. that s against the law. mueller s team may also ask about manafort s attempts during the trump campaign to reach oleg deripaska, the alleged oligarch seeking information on a missing nearly $19 million he invested with manafort. during the campaign he was offering that man private
savory reputations. then a high-profile return to american politics, running donald trump s campaign. paul had great success with reagan and with bush and with ford, and, you know, great success. i ve known trump three years, and we talked about the need to bring in additional people. he listened. he reached out. he couldn t escape the past. he was wanted for committing bank fraud. or his ties to russia. he was indebted to a russian oligarch who is close to president putin. after convictions on bank and tax fraud and time in jail, a stunning reversal for the former trump insider. paul manafort agreed to cooperate fully with robert mueller s russian probe. huge, capitalized, h-u-g-e. what does manafort know and what s it mean for president
younger manafort appeared to be playing by the rules. at the 1976 republican national convention, manafort, just two years after receiving his law degree from georgetown, helped president ford win a bruising primary battle with former california governor ronald reagan. the inner workings of the convention, he understood, gathering delegates and getting their equipme their commitments and predict political drama in advance. he was so good, he was called the count. there will be no more betrayal of allies and friends of the united states government. as the reagan revolution began in 1980, manafort and his pal, roger stone, became integral parts of the campaign with stone organizing for the giver in the northeast. paul manafort coordinated the southern plank, achieving the
manafort says, how do we use this to get hold? so, clearly, on his mind, the idea of leveraging his access to trump to solve this goodness problem that he had. and then he persisted in that, suggesting at one point, i would provide him private briefings on the state of the campaign. working for trump, manafort showed his talents for counting delegates and convention planning. we re going to bwin. we re going to win before clinton. you re confident you re going to win? i wouldn t be saying it if i wasn t. in may, offered the job of campaign chairman. his right hand man, rick gates, joined the campaign as deputy chairman. paul manafort had an enormous influence on that campaign in both professionalizing, developing strategy for issues on which to concentrate,