All language subtitles for American Greed s13e03 Paul Manafort

In this episode of American Greed, Paul
Manafort.

You've heard about the extravagant
clothes.

Here is, we submit to you the ostrich
code in question, and we submit it to

without comment.

Now, meet the man.

I will stipulate for purposes of today
that you could characterize this as

influence battle.

For years, influence peddler Paul
Manafort builds high -profile

then makes tens of millions of dollars
selling his access to the players in

charge. Manafort was motivated primarily
by two things, power and money.

I struggle to think of a client Paul
Manafort wouldn't have taken on.

After decades in D .C., Manafort uses
his political savvy and insider

connections to earn the biggest payday
of his career from pro -Russian

in Ukraine.

It was definitely in their interest to
make sure they had the right people with

the right connections and power.

But after making millions and illegally
hiding his wealth, Manafort loses it

all. So what did he do? He just lied.

And his effort to hitch himself to a
rising star...

leads to the exposure of a massive bank
and tax fraud scheme.

It's very sad what's happened to Paul,
the way he's being treated.

In 2016, presidential candidate Donald
Trump makes waves, promising to clean up

American politics.

We are going to Washington, D .C., and
we are going to drain the

swamp. That spring, to help secure his
party's nomination, the outsider

candidate turns to a big -time
Washington insider, Paul Manafort.

There's a lot of irony in the Trump
-Manaport connection, not the least of

is a candidate who is running as a
primary part of his platform on draining

swamp has just hired to run his
campaign, the ultimate swamp creature.

Manaport's path to the Trump campaign
begins years earlier.

in an industrial town not far from
Hartford, Connecticut.

Paul Manafort first became enamored with
politics at his father's knee. His dad

ran for and won the mayorality of New
Britain, Connecticut, their hometown.

His dad was a guy who practiced a very
hard style of politics, but

New Britain was also a place that was
filled with corruption.

Paul Manafort's father was accused and
even charged with perjury but never

convicted and had a road named after him
and was kind of a hero in his hometown.

So it's certainly possible that the son
would conclude that you can walk right

up to the edge of the line without
paying the penalty.

In the late 1960s, Manafort leaves New
Britain for Washington, D .C., where he

attends Georgetown University.

While many members of his generation
celebrate peace and love, he's pictured

the school yearbook flashing a V for
victory sign, an apparent celebration of

the 1968 election victory of Richard
Nixon.

After Nixon's resignation in 1974,
Manafort, then a lawyer, serves in

the White House under his successor,
President Gerald Ford.

Paul Manafort, even in those early days,
showed signs of becoming the master

strategist that he would eventually
fully realize.

He was just this shrewd operator who
understood how to get in the head of

somebody and to figure out what they
wanted and how he could deliver it to

After helping Ford defeat Ronald Reagan
for the GOP nomination in 1976,

Manafort works on Reagan's presidential
campaign four years later.

The South will be targeted. It will get
specialized media. We will carry the

Reagan record to the South,
particularly.

He kind of went where he saw an opening,
and by the time he was first getting

involved professionally around Reagan,
that was the hot thing in American

politics.

It turns out to be a good bet.

In this present crisis, government is
not the solution to our problem.

Government is the problem.

Out of Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign,
Washington was suddenly flooded with

Republicans who'd been out of power for
several years. And they had the new

power in town. But nobody had figured
out how to really capitalize on that

power. Manafort will lead the charge on
K Street.

D .C.'s lobbying center.

In 1980, he teams up with two other
Reagan campaign veterans, Charlie Black

and Roger Stone, who will later work for
the Trump campaign.

Together, the three men form a political
firm with an innovative two -part

business model.

They were electing people who they
established intimate relationships with.

And then they would turn around and ask
them for favors on behalf of corporate

clients. And this was an incredible
advantage.

And it made them a fortune.

The firm's principals bring in six
-figure salaries representing big -name

domestic clients, including a high
-powered New York real estate developer

Donald Trump.

Manafort ran a firm that blew up based
on a reputation for getting things

done. If you're a lobbyist, you're going
to be effective some of the time.

You're going to be effective maybe not
all of the time. But the important thing

is to create the perception of power.

And Manafort was a master of that.

The way he creates this perception is
partially spelled out in a company pitch

obtained by NBC News in 1988.

The document lists the close political
ties that key members of the firm had in

the Reagan administration, and it
promised that personal relationships

Department of State officials would be
utilized to upgrade a back -channel

relationship.

Though what they're doing is legal, some
consider it questionable.

Some of the old guard in Washington, D
.C. turned up their noses at what

Blackstone and Manafort were doing, and
they saw it as really unseemly.

They were breaking all sorts of norms.
They were creating all sorts of new

conventions for Washington. And I think
it's even possible to say that through

their firm, Paul Manafort and his crew
did a lot to create the swamp, if you

will, as we know it.

Coming up on American Greed, Paul
Manafort finds big paydays overseas and

makes a stunning admission about the
nature of his work.

I will stipulate for purposes of today
that you could characterize this as

influence peddling.

Over the decades that he works in
Washington, Paul Manafort becomes a

-the -scenes master of crafting
politicians' images.

When you set up here with all this
gadgetry, do you see yourself in the

the Wizard of Oz?

No, because if we were, we'd have
curtains on the front of the window.

But in this world of power and money,
it's not just American politicians and

American lobbying clients who turn to
him for help.

There were definitely instances before
Paul Manafort of lobbyists working on

behalf of scuzzy foreign governments.

But nobody had made it a cottage
industry in quite the same way that Paul

Manafort did.

He basically went out and found all
manner of folks with unsavory

who were willing to pay huge sums in
order to try to buff their reputations

improve their standing in Washington.

The work is not without controversy.

The Prime Minister of the Bahamas,
Lyndon Pinling, and key officials of his

government have long been described in
reports of American drug agents as

receiving huge payoffs from big -time
Colombian and American drug bosses.

But in 1984, a Washington lobbying firm
run by these men, all of whom are now

key advisors in the Bush campaign, went
to work for the Pinling government at

$800 ,000 a year.

When these reports first surfaced,
Manafort's partner, Charlie Black,

wrongdoing, saying the firm would never
work for a foreigner whose interests are

at odds with those of the United States.

But other bad press will follow.

In 1992, Manafort's firm, then called
Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, features

heavily in the torturous lobby.

Published by the Center for Public
Integrity, This report outlines the

work on behalf of questionable foreign
clients said to receive U .S. aid and

abuse human rights.

There's certainly an argument to be made
that Manafort was kind of the angel on

the shoulder of some of these arguably
very bad people that he was trying to

them to embrace democratic.

tactics and strategies, but also
democracy.

That's certainly the way Manafort and
his allies saw it.

Manafort's detractors say, that's a
bunch of bull.

It's possible to know who Manafort's
firm works for, who they lobby, and how

much they make because of a law called
the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or

FARA, created in the 1930s.

you think this is?

Right in Madison Square Garden, USA.

And this is Fritz Kuhn, leader of the
German -American Bund, hiding behind the

American flag, but taking his orders
from Berlin.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act was
enacted in 1938 in response to

congressional concerns about Nazi
subversive activities in the United

particular clandestine.

propaganda being disseminated throughout
the United States.

Now a partner at the law firm of Wiggin
and Dana, David Laufman once served as

chief of the Department of Justice's
counterintelligence and export control

section.

There, he was responsible for
enforcement of FARA, the law that

like Manafort to disclose their lobbying
and public relations work performed in

the U .S. on behalf of a foreign power.

The whole point of the statute is not to
suppress or regulate the content of

speech, but when that speech is
propagated by people in the United

on behalf of a foreign government or a
foreign political party to require

registration with the government and
periodic disclosures so that the

people or U .S. lawmakers can be
properly put on notice of who's behind

content so they can weigh.

what credit or weight to attach to him.

In Farrah filings like these from the
1980s, Manafort divulges which

he's working for, what he's doing for
them, and the vast sums he's paid.

Paul Manafort went from being a guy who
came from relatively little means to

a guy running a firm that was suddenly
printing money.

This was the 1980s, the age of Gordon
Gekko. And Manafort was somebody, when

suddenly stumbled upon wealth, really
set out to enjoy it.

Manafort and his partners and even some
of the associates at the firm were

wearing flashy tailored suits, driving
big, shiny cars, often foreign.

He got one of the biggest homes in his
friend's set.

When he had a pool, he didn't like where
it was positioned, so he had it moved

several feet.

He would disappear for weeks and come
back and expense a Concord round trip to

Paris and a week and a half in the
nicest hotel there.

He was a guy who was unaccustomed to
wealth, and when it came to him, he

flaunted it.

Working for unsavory foreign clients is
not the only way Manafort builds this

wealth.

In 1989, he tells Congress he's used his
inside connections to score

taxpayer dollars.

We did not think that that was improper.

What the system did for this former
Reagan campaign director was allow his

to buy a run -down New Jersey housing
development, refurbish it, and his

will receive $31 million in rent
subsidies over the next 15 years.

Manafort will never face charges.

But in June 1989, he is hauled before a
House committee where he makes a

stunning assertion. I will stipulate for
purposes of today that you could

characterize this as influence peddling.

He commits this really elementary
mistake.

He says, yes, I'm an influence peddler.

It was actually a very defining moment
for Paul Manafort. He was sort of at

point where he was being forced to
choose between potentially having some

foothold in government and being a full
-fledged power lobbyist.

Talking to some people who worked with
him back then was kind of the breaking

point, and he decided to choose the
private sector and the big paydays from

lobbying.

Next on American Greed, Paul Manafort
heads east and finds the opportunity

of a lifetime.

Manafort's work for Yanukovych was by
far his most lucrative and long -term

client.

Following Paul Manafort's admission that
he's an influence peddler, in the

1990s, his name largely disappears from
the headlines.

Paul Manafort's legendary firm gets
bought by a big corporate conglomerate.

he creates a new firm, which is a much
smaller firm, and he has to hustle for a

new set of clients.

He really immersed himself in the
foreign lobbying scene. That became his

train.

At a certain point, it appeared as if he
was just going to disappear entirely

from Washington and really make his home
around the world in the employ of some

of these fabulously wealthy clients who
would be willing to pay him a lot of

money.

No longer working with his old partners
at Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly,

Manafort looks east.

According to the report of Special
Counsel Robert Mueller, in 2005,

begins a multi -million dollar working
relationship with a Russian billionaire

named Oleg Deripaska.

He's believed to be among the closest
oligarchs to Putin.

He's known as an aluminum king.

His reputation is not a pretty one.

Oleg Deripaska developed a reputation as
someone not to be messed with.

According to the Mueller report, one of
Manafort's employees will tell federal

investigators that Deripaska pays
Manafort millions to help install

government officials in countries where
Deripaska does business.

The pro -Putin oligarch also invests
millions in a private equity fund that

Manafort launches.

In 2005, Manafort begins working in
Ukraine for a recently defeated pro

politician named Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort directs his Ukrainian operation
from a small office in Kiev.

At his side is Rick Gates.

Rick Gates was kind of Paul Manafort's
right -hand man.

Kind of a jack of all trades. I mean,
he'd be somebody that would put together

the financials for Paul Manafort and
Rick Gates' company in the morning and

maybe in the afternoon communicate some
of the finer points of what Paul

Manafort would outlay in strategy.

Even though Manafort has mastered the
art of crafting political images back in

the United States, doing so for
Yanukovych is no easy task.

He had the image of, let's say, a Soviet
factory boss.

He had a not -perfect suit.

It didn't fit very well. It was usually
unbuttoned.

And when Manafort started working with
him, Yanukovych turned into an American

dandy.

Yanukovych's one -time campaign chair,
Taras Chernobyl, got a first -hand look

at the work Manafort did for his former
boss.

He taught him to behave by American
standards.

He had to smile and wear a perfect suit
with each button perfectly fastened.

The hair had to be perfect.

The whole nine yards.

This is what he taught Yanukovych.

Under Manafort's tutelage, Yanukovych's
pro -Kremlin party makes strong gains.

And in 2010, the American consultant
helps his client defeat Yulia Tymoshenko

to become Ukraine's president.

For his work, prosecutors say Manafort
is paid handsomely by Yanukovych's

backers, a group of politically -minded,
ultra -wealthy, pro -Russian oligarchs.

Politics is just part of how they run
their business.

They fund election campaigns.

Daria Kalinyuk is the executive director
of the Anti -Corruption Action Center

in Kiev and a longtime observer of the
way oligarchs operate in Ukraine.

They decide who will win at the
elections.

And with this influence, they can adopt
any law which makes privileges for their

companies.

Prosecutors working for Robert Mueller
say that when these oligarchs pay

Manafort for his services, the money
doesn't go through normal channels.

It was all under the table and all very
roundabout.

It was all shadow money.

According to prosecutors and evidence
presented at trial, various oligarchs

transfer money into Manafort's secret
accounts in offshore banking havens like

the Seychelles and Cyprus.

They say Manafort will secret away more
than $55 million in these hidden

accounts. So by sheltering his funds
offshore, he was able to reduce his tax

bill by about $6 million.

Manafort began living just a truly
extravagant lifestyle, really living and

paying for his family to live similarly
extravagant lifestyles. And so he was

really spending like a drunken sailor.

In 2006, a company linked to Manafort
purchases an apartment in Trump Tower

for $3 .7 million.

Six years later, using his untaxed money
from Ukraine, he buys this Brooklyn

brownstone for $3 million and this 2
,000 -square -foot two -bed, two -bath

in Soho for another $2 .8 million.

And he spends more on antique rugs than
most people spend on their entire home.

He bought a million dollars worth of
rugs. He wasn't reselling them on the

market. I mean, it seems like he just
really liked rugs.

Then there are the clothes.

In just a few years, Manafort dropped $1
.3 million at a New York tailor and a

Beverly Hills clothier.

known as one of the most expensive
stores in the country.

I think when you see $1 .3 million in
clothing, I think that shocks a lot of

people. That's not the normal budget for
most of society.

Among his purchases is a now infamous
$15 ,000 ostrich skin bomber

jacket.

I think the ostrich jacket was a
metaphor for Paul Manafort's greed. It

enough for him to be successful. He
could have been extremely successful if

had just played by the rules.

But that wasn't enough. He wanted to
live a very decadent lifestyle.

Up next, turmoil strikes in Ukraine.

And Paul Manafort's secret cash stream
dries up.

All of a sudden it went from being a
faucet or a fire hose to everything

turned off.

Paul Manafort's scheme to avoid paying
$6 million in taxes.

is just one of the many secrets he's
keeping.

After the election of Viktor Yanukovych
in Ukraine in 2010, his rival, Yulia

Tymoshenko, is jailed.

Jailing Tymoshenko was a nasty bit of
business.

And it was clearly politically motivated
because Tymoshenko was far and away the

greatest political rival to Yanukovych.

And so his reputation took a big hit.

Ukraine still wanted to join the
European Union and wanted to show that

still a democratic country.

And so Manafort set about trying to
explain away this arrest, to say, you

what, this woman actually deserved to be
in prison.

And he did so by setting up a whole
lobbying campaign to try to change minds

Capitol Hill.

But they did it without making that
transparent.

Despite the requirements of the Foreign
Agents Registration Act, Manafort will

later admit in his criminal proceedings
that he runs the operation without

registering and takes steps to keep it
as secret as possible.

Money keeps flowing.

But in the last months of 2013, the
effort comes to an abrupt halt.

It has all the signs of a revolution,
and it's taking place in Kiev's

Independence Square.

Hundreds of thousands, and even about a
million people went to protest on the

streets, demanding dignity, human
rights, justice, and saying no

to corruption.

And President Yanukovych himself was a
symbol of corruption.

In February 2014, the protests in Kiev
turned deadly, and Yanukovych flees to

Russia.

Once gone, his lavish estate is open to
the public, offering a glimpse into the

life of excess from which he and
Manafort have now been removed.

When Paul Manafort went to work in
Ukraine, he was making so much money for

Yanukovych that he let the entire rest
of his lobbying practice fall away.

And when that relationship disappeared,
when his client was sent into exile, he

had nothing.

To make matters worse, Manafort is also
being sued by his old client.

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Over a
multi -million dollar investment deal

gone bad.

Eventually, Oleg Deripaska said that
Manafort essentially took his

Despite his mounting problems, Manafort
fails to adjust.

He and his family kept spending hand
over fist as if nothing had changed.

So in order to keep up this facade, he
ended up resorting to an increasingly

risky and sort of convoluted series of
financial and accounting and tax

In December 2015,

Manafort begins applying for loans, even
though he's hardly the perfect

candidate.

If banks looked at Paul Manafort's
actual financial situation...

They would look at somebody who's had
very little income coming in. They would

look at somebody who would be a real
risk for repaying loans.

So what did he do? He just lied.

He was committing bank fraud by
submitting false documents to obtain

banks and lenders. He would lie about
his income. He would lie about his debt.

In one instance, evidence shows he takes
a profit and loss statement showing his

company has lost $638 ,000.

He has it changed into a document that
can be edited and simply changes the

numbers.

From a $638 ,000 loss in the initial
document that was sent from the

after it was turned into a Word document
that Paul Manafort could edit, it shows

a $3 million gain.

For Paul Manafort's purposes, he's
telling the bank here, hey, I've got

coming in, and yes, I can pay you back.

According to lawyers working for special
counsel Robert Mueller, Manafort will

use lies like this to secure $25 million
in loans.

Coming up, with his financial life in
turmoil, Paul Manafort seizes an

opportunity.

I think it's pretty clear that he sees
Trump as the greatest opportunity for

salvation that he'll ever have.

I'll bring back our jobs and I'll bring
back our money.

Do the clothes make the man?

Take a look inside Paul Manafort's
closet at AmericanGreed .CNBC .com.

Want inside information from the show?

Join the Greed social network.

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page.

We'll be right back.

In the early months of 2016, Paul
Manafort is being pursued by Russian

oligarch Oleg Deripaska while also
running a multi -million dollar bank

scheme. He's sitting in a place of
desperation.

His marriage is in a bad place.

His finances are in a bad place.

He's looking for some way to reinvent
himself, some lifeline.

And he sees Trump come onto the scene.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially
running

for president of the United States.

And we are going to make our country
great again.

For Manafort, Trump was nothing less
than a political and a financial

Manafort uses his connections to score a
job.

This is the job application letter, for
lack of a better word, that Paul

Manafort submitted to Donald Trump
through a mutual friend.

He talks about himself as sort of an
insider who knows how to navigate these

very Byzantine party processes, but also
casts himself as, quote, not a part

of the political establishment.

Though he's resorting to fraud to stay
afloat, Manafort isn't asking for much.

One of the key selling points that
Manafort makes and the case for in this

application is that he will work for
free. He says, I'm not looking for a

job. And that he didn't need the money.

The pitch works.

And by March, Manafort is Trump's
convention manager.

By late May, he's taken over.

So joining me now from Southampton, New
York, is the chairman of the Trump

campaign, the head coach, if you will,
Paul Manafort. Mr. Manafort, welcome

to the show, sir.

Thank you, Chuck.

Manafort may be working for free, but
that doesn't mean he won't take

of his lucrative new gig.

to improve his balance sheet.

Manafort and his former Russian client,
Oleg Deripaska, have had a falling out

over a multi -million dollar investment
deal gone bad.

According to the Mueller report,
Manafort asks how he might use his new

get whole with this Putin -allied
oligarch and offers to provide him with

special briefings from inside the
campaign.

All indications were when Paul Manafort
said to Oleg Deripaska, this Russian

oligarch, can I provide you these
insights into the U .S. political

the U .S. election, to the Donald Trump
campaign potentially, to get whole with

you, he was referring to a debt that he
owed Oleg Deripaska coming out of a

failed business agreement.

According to the Mueller report,
Manafort's employee, Rick Gates, tells

investigators his boss has him share
internal campaign polling data with

employee in Ukraine so he could, in
turn, send it to their former clients in

country. Gates will also tell the feds
he understands Deripaska to be one

intended recipient.

Later, when Russian efforts to push the
election in favor of Trump are revealed,

this alleged move raises many questions.

A lot of close followers of the Russia
controversy saw in Manafort's

to share polling with some of these
oligarchs, perhaps an effort to try to

the Russian social media disinformation
campaign that we now know was deployed

to help Donald Trump in the 2016
election.

I think, however, there's an equally
strong and perhaps even more convincing

argument that what Manafort was trying
to do was to make money, and that's why

he was sharing the polling information.

He would want to show these former
clients that he still had some serious

According to the Mueller report,
Manafort did not acknowledge ordering

share the polling data.

Though he did not respond to American
Greed's requests for comments,

spokeswoman has said he never received
any polling data or private briefings.

Hillary Clinton is the epitome of the
establishment.

She's been in power for 25 years.

Despite his pronouncements, Manafort's
days leading Trump's outsider quest are

numbered.

In August 2016, Manafort resigns from
Team Trump.

in what the campaign calls a shake -up.

The following year, Trump is in the
White House, and former FBI Chief Robert

Mueller begins his inquiry into Russian
election interference.

Soon, Manafort finds himself directly in
the crosshairs.

St. Paul Manafort caught the eye of
Robert Mueller because of his

with Russia, connections with oligarchs,
all of his offshore business dealings.

And then once they began looking, found
all of the financial misconduct.

As will be revealed in future court
proceedings, the financial misconduct

investigators find includes the hiding
of Manafort's Ukraine income, his

multimillion -dollar bank fraud scheme.

and his secret lobbying efforts in
Washington on behalf of his Ukrainian

clients. In October 2017, he and his
deputy, Rick Gates, go

down hard.

Breaking news tonight, the first
indictment for the Mueller

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul
Manafort and his one -time top aide

federal charges.

At first, Manafort and Gates are
indicted for hiding income from their

Ukraine.

and hiding their secret lobbying
efforts.

Soon, their problems will grow.

Up next, Manafort heads to trial, and a
judge shocks many with his

pronouncement from the bench.

That judge also added that Manafort has
no criminal history and has, quote,

lived an otherwise blameless life.

There was nothing about that record.

that the adjective blameless should be
applied.

In the supercharged political landscape
of 2017, not everyone sees Paul

Manafort's indictment as justice at
work.

People try to paint this as some sort of
a political indictment or some sort of

a political attack going after the
president's former campaign manager.

I think that when you have a $25 million
bank fraud and $55 million in offshore

bank accounts, any prosecutor in America
would bring that case regardless of his

connection to President Trump. But I do
think, in addition, there was hope that

they could use those charges as leverage
to provide cooperation from Paul

Manafort. And it wasn't that they wanted
him to do in President Trump. They

wanted to learn the truth.

At first, Manafort doesn't flip.

But a few months after the initial
indictment, someone very close to him

Manafort's former top aide, Rick Gates,
pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying

to investigators.

Gates is now cooperating with the
special counsel.

It was really shocking when Rick Gates
flipped on Manafort and decided to

testify against him. This is a guy who
had worked for and around Manafort for

decades.

He knew that he had worked closely with
Rick Gates, that Rick Gates knew about

all of the schemes. He was his close
business partner and knew that his

cooperation would likely be devastating.

This is not the only trouble Manafort
faces.

In June 2018, prosecutors hit him with
additional charges.

They allege he's been coaching witnesses
to say his secretive lobbying for

Ukraine took place outside the U .S. and
was therefore totally legal.

That looked right there that this is
somebody who is hiding legitimate and

serious criminal behavior. That was
something that I think turned the tide

far as what people looked at when it
came to Paul Manafort's indictment.

Manafort's bail is revoked.

And the man who has lived in fine homes
across the country is sent to

lockup.

Manafort's case is split in two, with
one trial scheduled at the courthouse in

Alexandria, Virginia, and another in
Washington, D .C.

On July 31, 2018,

A jury in Virginia begins to hear the
first of these cases.

Though Paul Manafort was the Trump
campaign chairman for three months, this

trial is not about that.

Prosecutors argue that Manafort lied to
hide his money when he was making it in

Ukraine and lied to get more from banks
back home when that work ended.

In making that case, their star witness
is Manafort's longtime associate, Rick

Gates.

Rick Gates is not a perfect witness, but
very few cooperating witnesses are. But

what Rick Gates could provide is
essentially a talking roadmap and could

the jury exactly how it was that Paul
Manafort did his business. And for all

Rick Gates's own faults, there were
documents to back it up. It made him a

credible witness.

On August 21st, the jury finds Manafort
guilty on five counts of filing a false

tax return, one count of failing to
disclose a foreign bank account, and two

counts of bank fraud while acquitting
him on 10 additional charges.

When the trial ends, President Trump
denies a connection to the case. It

involve me, but I still feel, you know,
it's a very sad thing that happened.

This has nothing to do with Russian
collusion.

Not long after his guilty verdict in
Virginia, Manafort agrees to plead

to two conspiracy counts in his pending
case in D .C.

I think at that point he knew that the
only way that he could reduce his

potential prison exposure was to enter a
guilty plea and to cooperate with the

special counsel. And so he agreed to do
that. I don't know if he ever intended

to fully cooperate.

Throughout his case...

President Trump praises Manafort for not
flipping and dangles the possibility of

salvation.

Tonight, the president is saying that a
pardon for Paul Manafort, his former

campaign chair, is not off the table.

Two and a half months after agreeing to
help prosecutors, the government says in

a court filing, and a judge will later
agree, that Manafort has broken his

He broke it because he lied to
investigators about certain questions

had and certain questions that no matter
how he answered, he wouldn't have been

prosecuted for. And the question I think
that will always hover over this story

is why? Why was he lying? Why did he
decide not to fully play ball with

Mueller?

He must have believed that the truth
would be damaging to people he was

to protect. I don't know if that was
President Trump or others, or if it got

the very heart of cooperation about
Russia.

But it may be that those lies or
whatever it was he continued to protect

reason that Robert Mueller was never
able to establish a conspiracy between

Russia and the Trump campaign.

In March 2019,

Judges in Manafort's cases in Virginia
and D .C.

hand down separate sentences totaling
seven and a half years in prison.

Manafort did not respond to requests for
comment.

His is a fall from grace for a kingmaker
who once stood behind the most powerful

men in the world.

Many who studied Manafort's long career
as an influence peddler remained baffled

by the words of the Virginia judge in
his federal case, who said that, except

for his recent crime, Manafort had lived
an otherwise blameless life.

There was so much evidence revealing
Manafort to be a shady operator that to

hear the judge sort of almost applaud
him for living a blameless life to that

point was sort of galling to a lot of
people.

That phrase, in an otherwise blameless
life, really does stick into the craw

because everything that Manafort had
done from the moment that he opened up

lobbying shop in Washington had been
done to personally enrich himself at

the expense of American democracy.