EGN NEWS DESK
Four years after receiving a pardon from President Donald J. Trump for crimes associated to overseas lobbying, Paul Manafort is once more looking for enterprise from political pursuits overseas.
Mr. Manafort, who led Mr. Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign for a couple of months, has assembled a group of consultants who helped run Mr. Trump’s 2024 effort and is seeking to advise campaigns for opposition and far-right political factions in Latin America and Europe, in accordance with paperwork and interviews.
Mr. Manafort has mentioned working for a French billionaire supporting anti-immigration politicians together with Marine Le Pen, in addition to an ultraconservative Peruvian mayor seen as a potential presidential candidate. Mr. Manafort has even engaged with pursuits in Ukraine, the nation the place his work for Russia-aligned pursuits led to his downfall.
The circumstances round his re-emergence on the worldwide political consulting scene are murky and fraught, notably in Ukraine, the place there are considerations about Mr. Trump’s dedication to supporting the protection towards Russian aggression and the place Mr. Manafort’s earlier exercise stays notorious.
A memo detailing the group’s members and pitching its providers just lately circulated in political circles in Kyiv, producing anxious buzz.
Mr. Manafort mentioned in a press release that he has been contacted “by quite a few events in Ukraine,” however “by no means submitted a proposal on any matter to anybody in Ukraine,” and has not signed any contracts with pursuits there.
He didn’t reply questions from The Times about his different worldwide enterprise improvement efforts, and their standing isn’t clear.
Among these named in a model of the Manafort memo reviewed by The New York Times are Chris LaCivita, who helped handle Mr. Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign, in addition to a agency began by the marketing campaign’s political director, James Blair, whom Mr. Trump just lately named as a deputy chief of workers for the subsequent White House administration. Also named is Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster who has beforehand labored abroad, together with for Mr. Manafort’s Russia-aligned Ukrainian shoppers.
The group and its solicitation of overseas enterprise, beforehand unreported, search to capitalize on worldwide curiosity in forging connections to Mr. Trump amid his emergence on the middle of a populist motion of immigration critics sweeping elements of the world.
Mr. Trump’s election, and his rapport with Mr. Manafort, has opened a brand new chapter within the 75-year-old operative’s lengthy profession in worldwide politics.
In the Eighties and Nineties, Mr. Manafort helped pioneer a mannequin of consulting through which he was paid thousands and thousands of {dollars} to run campaigns for overseas politicians and to foyer for his or her governments in Washington, partly by positioning them as allies of the Reagan and Bush administrations within the combat towards communism.
Mr. Manafort appeared poised to capitalize on his ties to Mr. Trump by pursuing worldwide consulting contracts after the 2016 election. Instead, he grew to become a spotlight of the particular counsel’s investigation into ties between the Trump group and Russia, and was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail for monetary and tax crimes associated to revenue from Ukraine, and for conspiring to violate overseas lobbying legal guidelines.
During the ultimate weeks of his first time period, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Manafort, who then quietly started exploring enterprise alternatives overseas. His prospects expanded after Mr. Trump’s victory in November, in accordance with associates and opponents.
“People that knew Paul all around the globe all the time have been very stunned to see what occurred to him,” mentioned Hector Hoyos, a longtime buddy and former enterprise accomplice. “He’s all the time been in demand. Why? Because the man is, I believe, one of many brightest political tacticians of our era.”
In the pitch memo reviewed by The Times, Mr. Manafort’s group guarantees to “develop a state-of-the-art and multidimensional marketing campaign plan” to spice up “center-right political events” in France by concentrating on and mobilizing supportive voters, whereas utilizing opposition analysis and assaults to undermine opponents.
The pitch seems to have been ready for the Périclès venture, a enterprise began in 2023 by the billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin and his affiliate Arnaud Rérolle to speculate greater than $150 million over a decade to assist French right-wing events, together with Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party.
Mr. Manafort and John Harkrider, a low-profile Texas native who works in worldwide finance and politics, held a name with Mr. Rérolle to debate a potential engagement, after which the Manafort group agreed to offer a proposal, Mr. Rérolle informed The Times.
Mr. Rérolle mentioned the Périclès venture determined to not signal any contract with the group. Mr. Stérin’s group maintains shut ties to Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, however 4 prime party members mentioned they’d not heard of a possible future collaboration with Mr. Manafort.
Mr. Manafort’s pitch comes at a time when right-wing events are on the rise in France, and are anticipated to carry out nicely in future elections. Mr. Manafort beforehand labored in France, having written a marketing campaign technique for a number one center-right candidate within the 1995 French presidential elections.
Mr. Harkrider and Mr. Fabrizio didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Mr. LaCivita mentioned in a press release that he and Mr. Fabrizio “usually are not presently underneath contract” as a part of the Manafort coalition. But he mentioned “profitable political consultants on each the proper and left routinely do political consulting abroad,” and added “we all the time welcome the chance to help those that search to make their nations nice once more and who align with American overseas coverage.”
Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Fabrizio final month have been introduced as advisers to a nonprofit group anticipated to air ads to help Mr. Trump’s agenda.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump mentioned that Mr. Manafort has no function on the transition group.
The memo signifies that the group additionally consists of Mr. Harkrider, in addition to the digital promoting strategist Vincent Harris, who labored briefly for Mr. Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign.
Mr. Harris, who didn’t reply to requests for remark, has worldwide expertise, in accordance with the memo, which signifies that he labored for hard-right worldwide politicians together with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Three individuals acquainted with Mr. Manafort’s efforts to rebuild a global political consulting observe, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate non-public deliberations, mentioned he has explored the potential of working in Peru, which is headed right into a presidential election in 2026 after years of political tumult, violence and dissatisfaction with the political class.
Last month, in accordance with one of many individuals, Mr. Manafort spoke to a consultant of Mayor Rafael López Aliaga of Lima, a enterprise mogul and chief of the Peruvian proper who is taken into account a potential presidential candidate in 2026.
Mr. López Aliaga, who got here in third in Peru’s 2021 presidential race, attended a gathering of Trump associates and far-right world politicians in Buenos Aires final month. He has echoed false claims that Mr. Trump received the 2020 U.S. presidential election and railed towards what he describes as a cabal of leftists who’re invested in protecting Peru from creating and reaching its potential.
It isn’t clear if Mr. Manafort has any formal relationship with Mr. López Aliaga, whose workplace didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In his assertion, Mr. Manafort mentioned he hears rumors “virtually each week” about his return to Ukraine.
“The reply is that I’ve not been in Ukraine for about 10 years and haven’t any plans to go to,” he mentioned.
Still, a model of the Manafort pitch memo made its method to a number of Ukrainians allied with a outstanding political determine who is taken into account a potential rival to President Volodymyr Zelensky in a nonetheless unscheduled future election, in accordance with individuals acquainted with the state of affairs. They mentioned these Ukrainians had no real interest in Mr. Manafort’s providers. They spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they feared a backlash from Mr. Trump in the event that they publicly known as out Mr. Manafort.
Some members of Mr. Manafort’s coalition have been stunned to study that they’d been cited in a memo circulated in Ukraine.
“If we had identified it was a prospect, we might have politely declined to be named in mentioned pitch as we wouldn’t work there presently,” Ryan Smith, the president of Rapid Loop Consulting, mentioned in a press release.
Rapid Loop Consulting was based in 2013 by Mr. Blair, whose work for the Trump marketing campaign was featured within the memo. He absolutely divested from the agency after the election, Mr. Smith mentioned.
Mr. Smith mentioned that Rapid Loop agreed to be included in pitches with Mr. Manafort’s coalition “after they see a chance for the corporate to offer worth,” however he added that he had not mentioned “any particular potential engagement or consumer” with anybody within the coalition.
The considerations about working in Ukraine stem partly from the continuing warfare and Mr. Trump’s skepticism about U.S. army support for Ukraine’s protection, and partly from Mr. Manafort’s historical past.
He was paid tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} by oligarchs and different pursuits supporting the party of Viktor F. Yanukovych, whose profitable marketing campaign for president of Ukraine Mr. Manafort guided in 2010. After the collapse of Mr. Yanukovych’s authorities in 2014 amid road protests over its corruption and pivot towards Moscow, Mr. Manafort continued quietly courting the oligarchs who had backed the Yanukovych authorities. Mr. Manafort supplied to function a liaison to Mr. Trump’s group and suggested a brand new Russia-aligned party.
Mr. Manafort and an affiliate who prosecutors later labeled “a former Russian intelligence officer” mentioned a plan to finish hostilities that might have ceded management of a part of Ukraine to Russia, and reinstated Mr. Yanukovych because the chief of that area, in accordance with a report by the particular counsel who investigated Mr. Trump’s group.
Mr. Manafort was additionally among the many Trump associates who privately fomented mistrust about Ukraine with Mr. Trump and his group. It culminated in a White House strain marketing campaign towards Mr. Zelensky’s authorities that backfired badly, resulting in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.
Yet Mr. Manafort maintained his standing with Mr. Trump, and re-entered his orbit after receiving his pardon. He accepted a volunteer function serving to to plan final yr’s Republican National Convention. The association ended after a report in The Washington Post revealed that he had continued pursuing worldwide enterprise, together with in China.
Mr. Manafort has been noticed on the non-public Trump resort Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., for the reason that election, in accordance with individuals acquainted with his whereabouts.
“Trump and him,” Mr. Hoyos mentioned, “they don’t disguise the truth that they’re pals.”
Mitra Taj contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.
