A story from the upcoming March issue of The Atlantic just posted online at
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/paul-manafort-american-hustler/550925/is chock full of new insights into how uniquely flawed Manafort was known to be and how perfectly his unquestioned acceptance into the inner circle of the Trump campaign reflects the complete ineptitude of Trump and his entire campaign and Administration staff. Reading the entire story is highly recommended but perhaps the key takeaway from the story is this set of snippets from the very first section of the story. They set up how a perfectly corrupt, unstable person managed to meld his way into a Presidential campaign of the worst candidate seen in our history.
The clinic permitted Paul Manafort one 10-minute call each day. And each day, he would use it to ring his wife from Arizona, his voice often soaked in tears. "Apparently he sobs daily," his daughter Andrea, then 29, texted a friend. During the spring of 2015, Manafort’s life had tipped into a deep trough. A few months earlier, he had intimated to his other daughter, Jessica, that suicide was a possibility. He would "be gone forever," she texted Andrea.
(snip)
Money, which had always flowed freely to Manafort and which he’d spent more freely still, soon became a problem. After the revolution, Manafort cadged some business from former minions of the ousted president, the ones who hadn’t needed to run for their lives. But he complained about unpaid bills and, at age 66, scoured the world (Hungary, Uganda, Kenya) for fresh clients, hustling without any apparent luck. Andrea noted her father’s "tight cash flow state," texting Jessica, "He is suddenly extremely cheap." His change in spending habits was dampening her wedding plans. For her "wedding weekend kick off" party, he suggested scaling back the menu to hot dogs and eliminated a line item for ice.
(snip)
But after the exposure of his infidelity, his wife had begun to confess simmering marital issues to her daughters. Manafort had committed to couples therapy but, the texts reveal, that hadn’t prevented him from continuing his affair. Because he clumsily obscured his infidelity—and because his mistress posted about their travels on Instagram—his family caught him again, six months later. He entered the clinic in Arizona soon after, according to Andrea’s texts. "My dad," she wrote, "is in the middle of a massive emotional breakdown."
It would be IMPOSSIBLE for Vladmir Putin to dream of a more perfectly compromised character to step in and play a part in his global battle of Kompromat against the West and the United States.
Financial troubles? Check.
International legal troubles? Check.
A trail of legal documents left behind regarding a country now controlled by Russia? Check.
Infidelity / sex scandals? Check.
And given Putin's role in destabilizing Ukraine, he would be in a perfect position to know of Manafort's particular financial and ethical plight and -- once seen accepted into the role of key adviser to a Presidential candidate -- know how to leverage it.
Only Trump and the wave of revulsion around his campaign that kept all mainstream political professionals away could produce the perfect situation for someone already so compromised to waltz right into the inner circle and further magnify the polluted thinking already in Trump's stunted brain.
The story makes clear that Manafort made a name for himself in Washington DC for ignoring normal rules for decorum in fund raising, financial management with off-shore banks, etc. And Manafort had another characteristic unique to him... Absolutely no common sense about avoiding the limelight. "The imperative to shy away from unnecessary attention," as the author puts it.
Yup. Sounds like a Trump staffer to me.
WTH
