Paul J. Manafort, Jr.

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Paul J. Manafort, Jr. is a prominent Washington DC Republican lobbyist who for five months managed the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Paul Manafort was graduated from Georgetown University (B.S., B.A., 1971) and Georgetown University Law School (J.D., 1974). He is married and resides in Alexandria, Va. He was born in New Britain, Conn., on April 1, 1949." [1]

ASSOCIATED ENTITIES
Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly Charles R. Black, Jr.
Roger J. Stone, Jr. Peter G. Kelly
Lee Atwater (unnamed partner) Gold & Liebengood
Prime Policy GroupBurson-Marsteller
BKSH & Associates DMS Inc.

Documents & Timeline

1974-75: He was general counsel and executive officer of Family Realty.


1975-77: He was Associate Director of the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House in 1975-77.


1976: he served as a delegate-hunt coordinator for eight States for the President Ford Committee.


1977-80: Mr. Manafort was an attorney with the firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in Washington, D.C.


1978-80: he was southern coordinator, Reagan for President Committee, and deputy political director, Republican National Committee.


1980: Paul J Manafort and his partners Charles Black and Roger Stone in Black, Manafort & Stone (Kelly came later), formed the new company which later became Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. The lobby firm begins to work for the Ronald Reagan for President campaign.


1981: Announcement by President Reagan:

"The President today [1981] announced his intention to nominate Paul J. Manafort, Jr., to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, United States International Development Cooperation Agency.
"Mr. Manafort is currently a partner with the firm of Black, Manafort & Stone, specializing in government relations, public affairs, and political consulting. He was personnel coordinator, Office of Executive Management, during the transition period.


1984 Nov 13: Black Manafort & Stone were recommending to Hon Stan Parris that he run for Governor of Virginia in 1985. This appears to have been a tobacco industry project. [1]


1985 Feb 25: The Black Manafort contract with Tobacco Institute is now for $10,000 a month. The company Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly is now being run by James C Healey for Buston-Marsteller. The previous terms of contract was dated 1/18/83. [2]


1987 Jun: CNN Money/Fortune

Controversy has surrounded Black Manafort Stone & Kelly since the seven- year-old megafirm started to combine lobbying and campaign consulting among the services it offered. Founded by Charles Black, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone, the firm has 60 employees and boasts such clients as Johnson & Johnson, Bethlehem Steel, and a number of foreign governments. All three founders were key Reagan operatives during the 1984 campaign, and they tout their access to the White House and to GOP presidential hopefuls. Black, the master strategist, is an unpaid consultant to New York Congressman Jack Kemp, a presidential hopeful. Lee Atwater, a partner in the firm's political consulting arm, is one of George Bush's top advisers. The outfit has helped reelect such powerful politicians as Jesse Helms, and everyone knows there's no greater IOU-generator in Washington than helping put -- or keep -- a lawmaker in office. Going back to those same lawmakers to lobby for corporations and foreign clients, critics charge, stretches Washington's already loose ethical standards.

[3]


1988: It was disclosed that Black, Manafort retained the island nation of the Bahamas as a client at a time its leadership was being attacked for alleged ties to drug traffickers. BMSK officials insisted that they intended only to help the Bahamas obtain more United States aid for efforts to curb drug smugglers.[1]


1995: Paul Manafort and Richard H Davis (both ex-Black Manafort) launched a new consulting firm with merchant banking connections, DMS Inc. in Aleandria, Virginia.


1996: Gold & Liebengood (now without Howard Liebengood) was sold to Burson Marsteller and then merged with Paul Manafor's lobby firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly to form BKSH & Associates


1996 May/June: Mother Jones article.

Paul Manafort, Dole's convention manager, was co-founder of the Washington lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, which represents Philip Morris. Black, Manafort is a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller, the public relations firm for Philip Morris and the headquarters for the National Smokers Alliance. Last year, Manafort launched DMS, a consulting firm in Virginia, with Rick Davis, also from Black, Manafort, and a Dole convention official.

[4]


1996 May 31: "Bob Dole's K Street Cronies" by Peter H. Stone of The National Journal,

To run the entire convention, the Dole campaign in April tapped Paul J Manafort, who has worked in key slots at other GOP conventions and is a founding partner of DMS Inc. an Alexandria (Va.)-based lobbying and merchant banking firm.

"We'll use a lot of people who've been active in previous conventions, " he said. "The key to success at conventions is not to recreate the wheel. These are people I euphemistically call $100,000 guys doing $5,000 jobs." One of those "guys" is his partner, Richard H. Davis, who is doing the day-to-day, nuts-and-bolts planning of the convention for Manafort.

Part of Manafort's job also involves policy questions, and for those, he's relying on a number of Hill experts. "We're creating a network on the Hill that we can tap at the convention," he said. "We're relying on policy types on the Hill to help us on policy questions." Manafort has also been heavily involved in other parts of the campaign. He was in charge of Dole's efforts in the Florida straw poll. His firm lobbies for G Tech, a large Rhode Island maker of equipment for national, state and local lotteries.

[Note: G Tech later became involved in a voting machine scandal]


2004: Report that Paul Manafort was working at this time for the Ukrainian government (PBS News Hour Mar 23 2017)


2005: Black Manafort made a pitch to a Russian oligarch on a proposal to

"greatly benefit the Putin government"
Later Manafort signed a $US10 million a year contract with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminium billionaire who is close to the Kremlin. (quoted from a strategic Manafort-Deripaska memo by Associated Press) The memo outlined a plan to influence government and media coverage in Europe and the USA, and promote the interests of Putin: "We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success."


2010: BKSH & Associates and Timmons and Company merged to form Prime Policy Group, a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller Global Public Relations. (He may, no longer, have had a direct interest in these companies. )


2014: Victor Yanukovych, the Russian-leaning president of Ukraine ousted in a revolution.


2016 March: Paul Manafort hired as campaign chairman for Donald Trump's presidential campaign


2016 Aug 20: Donald Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been forced to resign from his position as campaign manager on the Trump Republican presidential campaign. It became obvious that he had lied about receiving $12 million from the previous Ukrainian governement (discovered in documents by corruption investigators). This should have been registered in US under the Alien Agent Act.

The new campaign director was Kellyanne Conway, and her CEO was Stephen Bannon.


2017 March 23: The Trump White House is distancing itself from former campaign chairman Paul Manafort in the midst of the FBI investigation into possible Russian involvement in the presidential election campaign. They point out that his secret work for a Russian billionaire happened during "the last decade".

References