Trump ally Paul Manafort, who was convicted of multiple felonies during Trump's term in office, has several incentives to get the former president back in office.
In an editorial for the New York Times, journalists Brody Mullins and Luke Mullins explain how Manafort is primed to cash in during a second Trump term.
"Rather than drain the swamp, an unleashed President Trump would return the lobbying industry to the smoke-filled rooms of the 1930s, an era unchallenged by the decades of reforms since Watergate," they write. "And Mr. Manafort, whose career has been based on lobbying the same people he helped put in office, would be at the center."
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The journalists then quote from Scott Reed, a GOP strategist who hired Manafort to work as an operative during Bob Doles unsuccessful 1996 presidential campaign.
"A new Trump administration would be a bonanza for Paul," Reed explained. "Trump is the Manafort model: access at the highest levels for his clients and friends."
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In fact, Manafort owes his very freedom to Trump, who pardoned him and freed him from the seven-year prison sentence he received after being convicted of multiple felony charges, including money laundering, witness intimidation, and perjury.
And Trump, in turn, appreciates that Manafort never flipped on him despite coming under enormous pressure from federal prosecutors to do so.
While Manafort has not been offered a job on Trump's campaign, Mullins and Mullins speculate that the former president will eagerly reward him for his loyalty in his second term in the form of favors to his clients.
"In the likely event that he resumes representing clients before the government and if Mr. Trump is elected, the president will have plenty of other ways to repay his former campaign chairman," they conclude.
