Donald Trump intends to give his disgraced former campaign manager Paul Manafort a role in his 2024 re-election campaign.
Four sources familiar with the discussions told the Washington Post that the former president has talked about enlisting Manafort, who was convicted of tax and bank fraud but later pardoned by Trump, to play a role centered around the Republican convention in Milwaukee
Manafort served time in prison for the felony convictions as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference in Trump's first campaign, and the investigation found that Manafort had shared internal polling data with a longtime associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, who was determined to have ties to Kremlin intelligence.
A bipartisan Senate committee concluded that Manafort's openness to Russian assistance was a "grave counterintelligence threat" that left Trump's campaign vulnerable to "malign" foreign influence.
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“Manafort’s presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign,” the Senate investigation found.
Trump feels loyal to Manafort because he served prison time for hiding millions of dollars he made while lobbying on behalf of pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine and then lying about his finances to get loans, the Post reported, and sources said the ex-president still complains often about the Mueller investigation.
Manafort first joined the Trump campaign in summer 2016, agreeing to work for no salary, but he was ousted in late August after Trump reportedly "blew a gasket" when he learned that his firm had not properly disclosed its foreign lobbying.
Mueller's investigation found that Manafort had “no meaningful income" when he joined the campaign, although he owned multiple luxury properties and spent lavishly on cars, clothing and interior furnishing, and the investigation determined that he planned to find ways to monetize his role on the presidential campaign.
