Paul John Manafort Jr. is an American lobbyist, political consultant, lawyer, and convicted felon. A Republican, he joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign team in March 2016, and was campaign chairman from June to August 2016. On August 21, 2018, Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to report foreign bank accounts. On September 14, 2018, he pleaded guilty to an additional two counts of conspiracy, per a plea deal in which he also agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel investigation.Manafort was an adviser to the U.S. presidential campaigns of Republicans Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bob Dole. In 1980, he co-founded the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone, along with principals Charles R. Black Jr., and Roger J. Stone, joined by Peter G. Kelly in 1984.Manafort often lobbied on behalf of foreign leaders such as former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, former dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko, and Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi. Lobbying to serve the interests of foreign governments requires registration with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act ; however, as of June 2, 2017, Manafort had not registered. On June 27, he retroactively registered as a foreign agent.Manafort has been under investigation by multiple federal agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has had an active criminal investigation on him since 2014 regarding business dealings while he was lobbying for Yanukovych. He is also a person of interest in the FBI counterintelligence probe looking into the Russian government's interference in the 2016 United States presidential election.
On October 27, 2017, Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted by a District of Columbia grand jury on multiple charges arising from his consulting work for the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The indictment had been requested by Robert Mueller's special investigation unit. Manafort surrendered and was released on bail confined to house arrest. In June 2018, additional charges were filed against Manafort for obstruction of justice and witness tampering that are alleged to have occurred while he was under house arrest, and he was ordered to jail. In February 2018, a new set of indictments were filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging tax evasion and bank fraud. Manafort was brought to trial on those charges in August 2018, and on August 21 he was convicted on eight out of eighteen charges of tax and bank fraud. A mistrial was declared on the other ten, with one juror stating there had been a single holdout on those charges. A separate trial on the District of Columbia charges was scheduled for September 2018, though his plea deal with Robert Mueller has negated the need for another trial.
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1. April 1949
