Paul Manafort Quotes (1949-)

“Roger's the first one who introduced us to Donald, and Donald was one of our clients at Black, Manafort, Stone in the early 80s and was a client of ours for a long time.”

“Nine months after the Ukrainian revolution, Manafort’s family life also went into crisis. ...[W]hen he called home in tears or threatened suicide in the spring of 2015, he was pleading for his marriage. ...Manafort had rented his mistress a $9,000-a-month apartment in Manhattan and a house in the Hamptons, not far from his own. He had handed her an American Express card, which she’d used to good effect. ...Because he clumsily obscured his infidelity—and because his mistress posted about their travels on Instagram—his family caught him again. ...He entered the clinic in Arizona... according to [his daughter] Andrea’s texts. “...in the middle of a massive emotional breakdown.” ...[B]y the early months of 2016, Manafort was back in greater Washington... He wrote Donald Trump a crisp memo listing all the reasons he would be an ideal campaign consigliere...”

“For more than five years... Paul Manafort, lobbied for a Washington-based group [the Kashmiri American Council]... [charged with operating] as a front for Pakistan's intelligence service. Manafort’s work... was only one part of a wide-ranging portfolio that, over several decades, included... foreign clients ranging from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and Zaire’s brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, to an Angolan rebel leader accused by human rights groups of torture. His role as an adviser to Ukraine’s then prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, prompted concerns within the Bush White House that he was undermining U.S. foreign policy. It was considered so politically toxic in 2008 that presidential candidate John McCain nixed plans for Manafort to manage the Republican National Convention...”

“Paul Manafort went to work in Ukraine in 2005... A U.S. embassy cable... described Manafort’s job as giving an “extreme makeover” to... presidential hopeful... Viktor Yanukovych, who had the backing of the Kremlin and most of Ukraine’s wealthiest tycoons. His Party of Regions, the cable said, was "a haven" for "mobsters and oligarchs." ...Yanukovych had served jail time in his youth for theft and battery. He also had a hard time speaking Ukrainian... The man paying the exorbitant bills for these efforts was... the coal and metals magnate Rinat Akhmetov. ...[S]ome of Yanukovych’s political patrons were implicated in the murder of Georgy Gongadze... abducted and beheaded [in 2000].”

“A lobbyist can perform no greater favor for a lawmaker than to help get him elected. It is the ultimate political IOU, and it can be cashed in again and again. No other firm holds more of this precious currency than the Washington shop known as Black, Manafort. Legally, there are two firms. Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, a lobbying operation... Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, a political-consulting firm, has helped elect... powerful... politicians... The partners... say that the lobbying and political-consulting functions are kept separate. ...Charges Fred Wertheimer, president of the public-interest lobbying group Common Cause: "It's institutionalized conflict of interest." ...The partners charge six-figure fees to lobby and six-figure fees to manage election campaigns. As a result, they take home six-figure salaries. ...They unabashedly peddle their access to the Reagan Administration.”

“Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and I had worked together through the Reagan campaign. When the Reagan campaign got short of cash, [we] decided to start a political consulting firm. Paul Manafort came in one day and said, "You know we ought to start a lobbying firm, because I'm getting a lot of calls from people who all know we work for Reagan and know the people who are going to be in the Reagan administration, and they want lobbying." So we did.”