Trump’s True Crimes – Episode 76: Paul Manafort’s Payouts

Welcome to Trump’s True Crimes. This is Episode 76: Paul Manafort’s Payouts.

Paul Manafort wasn’t just Donald Trump’s campaign chairman. He was a man neck-deep in foreign money, oligarch connections, and shadowy deals that made him a glaring national security risk from the moment he joined the campaign.

For years before 2016, Manafort worked for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, including Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted after a corrupt, Kremlin-aligned regime. Manafort was paid tens of millions of dollars to polish Yanukovych’s image and undermine democratic movements in Ukraine. To hide the money, Manafort used offshore accounts, shell companies, and luxury purchases—from expensive real estate to lavish suits.

By 2016, Manafort was financially drowning. He owed money to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and desperately needed a way to get back into the inner circle of power. Enter the Trump campaign. Manafort offered his services for free—a bizarre move unless you understood that he was trying to use Trump’s candidacy as a ticket to repay debts and curry favor with foreign backers.

While serving as Trump’s campaign chairman, Manafort secretly shared internal polling data and strategy with Konstantin Kilimnik, a man the U.S. government has identified as a Russian intelligence operative. Think about that: the head of Trump’s campaign was feeding sensitive election information straight into Kremlin-linked hands.

When prosecutors closed in, Manafort was charged with tax fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, and failing to register as a foreign agent. He was convicted, sentenced to more than seven years in prison, and stripped of his lavish lifestyle. But Trump had his back. After dangling the possibility of a pardon, Trump finally delivered, wiping away Manafort’s convictions before leaving office.

Manafort’s case wasn’t just about corruption. It was about a campaign manager who sold out America’s democratic process to foreign interests—all while helping Trump win the presidency.

And it connects to a larger story: the web of foreign money and influence around Trump’s 2016 inauguration. That’s what we’ll cover next, in Episode 77: Foreign Influence in Inauguration Fund.