After pleading guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice, Paul Manafort, the globe-trotting political consultant and former campaign chairman for Donald Trump, asked for leniency in his sentencing, telling a federal judge five years ago that he was nearly 70 years old, struggling with health concerns and remorseful for his actions.
The judge
rejected his entreaties in the spring of 2019, ordering Manafort to remain behind bars for more than seven years. Less than two years later, however, Manafort’s criminal record was wiped clean when Trump
pardoned him. He was among the dozens of allies, extended family members and former campaign staffers allowed to walk free.
With his freedom, Manafort hardly retired to a quiet home life. Manafort has been assisting an effort to launch a Netflix-like mobile streaming and entertainment platform in China that, according to corporate documents, has the endorsement of the Chinese government.
Manafort, now 75, also sought to advise political figures in Japan and South Korea.
Advisers say Trump is determined to hire Manafort, likely handing him a substantial role at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, because he appreciates that his onetime campaign chairman has remained loyal to him even while serving in prison.
Manafort’s activities also illustrate the enduring effects of Trump’s
brazen use of presidential pardons. With the stroke of a pen, Trump erased consequences for loyalists convicted of crimes, allowing them to reenter business or politics and helping to preserve their professional standing.
Across two federal prosecutions, one in Northern Virginia and one in Washington, Manafort was convicted by a jury of some charges and pleaded guilty to others. Jurors couldn’t reach a verdict on all charges in Northern Virginia, and prosecutors in Washington discarded certain counts in reaching a plea deal with the defendant.
His lucrative consulting business, whose other partners included longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, rose to prominence during Ronald Reagan’s presidency and soon gave him access to custom-made suits and luxury real estate, including an apartment in Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Manafort’s work spanned continents. Among the foreign strongmen he took on as clients was Viktor Yanukovych, the Russia-aligned president of Ukraine who was toppled in pro-Western demonstrations in 2014 and later convicted of treason in absentia after fleeing to Russia.
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