Paul John Manafort Jr. (born April 1, 1949) is an American lobbyist, political consultant, former lawyer, and convicted felon. A long time Republican Party campaign consultant, he joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign team in March 2016, and was campaign chairman from June to August 2016. He was convicted of tax and bank fraud in 2018 and forfeited his license to practice law in January 2019. Manafort has served as 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 (FARA); on June 27, 2017, he retroactively registered as a foreign agent. On October 27, 2017, Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia 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 Counsel investigation. 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.
Manafort was prosecuted in two federal courts. In the Eastern District of Virginia, in August 2018, Manafort was convicted on eight charges of tax and bank fraud. A mistrial was declared on ten other charges, though he later admitted to them. In the DC District Court, Manafort pleaded guilty to two charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. On November 26, 2018, Robert Mueller reported that Manafort violated his plea deal by repeatedly lying to investigators, and on February 13, 2019, DC District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concurred, voiding the plea deal. Mueller advised the Virginia court that sentencing guidelines call for Manafort to serve 19 and a half years to 24 years in prison. On March 7, 2019, Judge T.S. Ellis, calling the Mueller applicable sentencing guideline "excessive", sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison. On March 13, 2019, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the D.C. Circuit Court sentenced Manafort to an additional 43 months in prison, thirty of which to be served concurrently with his previous sentence. Minutes after his sentencing, New York State charged Manafort with sixteen state felonies.
