Paul Manafort, former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman whom he later pardoned, is backing away from a role with the Republican National Convention following media scrutiny and questions over his involvement in the planning process, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Manafort had been in discussions with Trump’s team to help with the convention in Milwaukee, CNN previously reported.
In a statement provided to the New York Times, Manafort said he was offering “advice and suggestions” to the Trump campaign on the Republican National Convention.
“As a longtime, staunch supporter of President Trump and given my nearly 50 years experience in managing presidential conventions, I was offering my advice and suggestions to the Trump campaign on the upcoming convention in a volunteer capacity,” Manafort said.
“However, it is clear that the media wants to use me as a distraction to try and harm President Trump and his campaign by recycling old news, and I won’t let the media do that. So, I will stick to the sidelines and support President Trump every other way I can,” he continued.
A Trump campaign official confirmed his departure.
Manafort’s departure from the support position comes after The Washington Post reported that he was helping launch a Chinese streaming platform.
Manafort spent close to two years of a 7.5-year sentence in prison for bank and tax fraud, illegal foreign lobbying and witness tampering conspiracies before being released in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, spending the remainder of his sentence under home confinement prior to his pardon.
