Four years later receive a grace by President Donald J. Trump for crimes related to foreign lobbying, Paul Manafort is once again seeking business from political interests abroad.
Mr. Manafort, who ran Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign for a few months, assembled a team of consultants who helped lead Mr. Trump’s 2024 efforts and seeks to advise the opposition and party campaigns. far-right political factions in Latin America and Europe. according to documents and interviews.
Mr. Manafort spoke of working for a French billionaire supporting anti-immigration politicians, including Marine Le Pen, as well as an ultraconservative Peruvian mayor seen as a possible presidential candidate. Mr. Manafort even engaged with interests in Ukraine, the country where his work on behalf of Russia-aligned interests led to his downfall.
The circumstances surrounding his re-emergence on the international political advisory stage are murky and tense, particularly in Ukraine, where there are concerns about Mr. Trump’s commitment to supporting defense against Russian aggression and activities Mr. Manafort’s past records remain infamous.
A memo detailing the team’s members and touting its services recently circulated in kyiv’s political circles, sparking anxious buzz.
Mr. Manafort said in a statement that he had been contacted “by numerous parties in Ukraine” but that he “never submitted a proposal on anything to anyone in Ukraine” and that he had not signed any contract with interests in this country.
He did not respond to questions from The Times about his other international business development efforts, and their status is unclear.
Among those named in a version of the Manafort memo reviewed by The New York Times are Chris LaCivita, who helped manage Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, as well as a company created by the campaign’s political director, James Blair, whom Mr. Trump recently nominated. as deputy chief of staff for the next White House administration. Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster who has previously worked abroad, including for Ukrainian clients aligned with Mr. Manafort’s Russia.
The team and its previously unheard solicitation of foreign companies are seeking to capitalize on international interest to build ties with Mr. Trump amid his emergence at the center of a crisis. populist movement criticism of immigration around the world.
Mr. Trump’s election and his relationship with Mr. Manafort opened a new chapter in the 75-year-old’s long career in international politics.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Manafort helped pioneer a consulting model in which he was paid millions of dollars to run campaigns for foreign politicians and lobby for their governments in Washington, partly by positioning them as allies of the Reagan and Bush administrations. in the fight against communism.
Mr. Manafort seemed ready to capitalize on his ties to Mr. Trump by pursuing international consulting contracts after the 2016 election. Instead, he became the subject of the special prosecutor’s investigation into ties between the Trump team and Russia, and was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for financial and tax crimes related to income from Ukraine and for conspiracy to violate foreign lobbying laws.
In the final weeks of his first term, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Manafort, who then quietly began explore business opportunities abroad. His prospects broadened after Mr. Trump’s victory in November, according to his associates and competitors.
“People who knew Paul all over the world were always very surprised to see what happened to him,” said Hector Hoyos, a longtime friend and former business partner. “He was always in demand. For what? Because this guy is, I think, one of the most brilliant political tacticians of our generation.
In the presentation memo reviewed by the Times, Mr. Manafort’s team promises to “develop a multi-dimensional, cutting-edge campaign plan” to energize “center-right political parties” in France by targeting and mobilizing voters favorable, while using opposition research and attacks to undermine opponents.
The pitch appears to have been prepared for the Périclès project, an adventure launched in 2023 by billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin and his associate Arnaud Rérolle to invest more than $150 million over a decade to help French right-wing parties, including Mme Le Pen’s National Rally party.
Mr. Manafort and John Harkrider, a low-key Texas native who works in international finance and politics, had a phone call with Mr. Rérolle to discuss a possible engagement, after which Manafort’s team agreed to provide a proposal, Mr. Rérolle told The Times.
Mr. Rérolle indicated that the Périclès project had decided not to sign any contract with the team. Mr. Stérin’s team has close ties to Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, but four senior party officials said they had not heard of possible future collaboration with Mr. Manafort.
Mr. Manafort’s speech comes at a time when right-wing parties are on the rise in Franceand are expected to perform well in the next elections. Mr. Manafort previously worked in France, have written a campaign strategy for a center-right candidate in the 1995 French presidential elections.
Mr. Harkrider and Mr. Fabrizio did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. LaCivita said in a statement that he and Mr. Fabrizio “are currently not under contract” with the Manafort coalition. But he said “successful political consultants on both the right and the left regularly conduct political consulting abroad,” and added “we are always happy to have the opportunity to help those seeking to give back.” greatness to their country and who align with American foreign policy.
Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Fabrizio last month were announced as advisor to non-profit group is expected to run ads in support of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump said Mr. Manafort had no role in the transition team.
The memo says the team also includes Mr. Harkrider, as well as digital advertising strategist Vincent Harris, who worked briefly for Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016.
Mr. Harris, who did not respond to requests for comment, has international experience, according to the memo, which indicates that he has worked for international far-right politicians, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Three people familiar with Mr. Manafort’s efforts to rebuild an international policy consulting practice, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said he had explored the possibility of working in Peru, which is heading towards a presidential election in 2026 after years of political tumultviolence and discontent with the political class.
Last month, according to one of the sources, Mr. Manafort spoke with a representative of Lima Mayor Rafael López Aliaga, a business tycoon and leader of the Peruvian right seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2026.
Mr. López Aliaga, who came third in the 2021 Peruvian presidential election, attended a gathering of Trump associates and far-right politicians in Buenos Aires last month. He has echoes false claims that Mr. Trump won the 2020 US presidential election and has denounced what he describes as a cabal of leftists who are invested in preventing Peru from developing and reaching its potential.
It is unclear whether Mr. Manafort has a formal relationship with Mr. López Aliaga, whose office did not respond to requests for comment.
In his statement, Mr. Manafort said he heard rumors “almost every week” about his return to Ukraine.
“The answer is that I haven’t been to Ukraine for about 10 years and I have no plans to go there,” he said.
Yet a version of Manafort’s memo was forwarded to several Ukrainians allied with a prominent political figure seen as a possible rival to President Volodymyr Zelensky in as-yet-unscheduled future elections, according to people familiar with the matter. They claimed that these Ukrainians were not interested in Mr. Manafort’s services. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared a backlash from Mr. Trump if they publicly called out Mr. Manafort.
Some members of Mr. Manafort’s coalition were surprised to learn that they were cited in a memo distributed in Ukraine.
“Had we known this was a prospect, we would have politely declined to be named in said pitch as we would not be working there at this time,” said Ryan Smith, president of Rapid Loop Consulting , in a press release.
Rapid Loop Consulting was founded in 2013 by Mr. Blair, whose work for the Trump campaign was featured in the memo. He divested entirely from the company after the election, Mr. Smith said.
Mr. Smith said Rapid Loop had agreed to be included in discussions with Mr. Manafort’s coalition “when they see an opportunity for the company to provide value,” but he added that it does not had discussed “no specific commitments or potential clients” with anyone. in the coalition.
Concerns about work in Ukraine stem in part from the ongoing war and skepticism about US military aid for the defense of Ukraine, and partly from the history of Mr. Manafort.
He was paid tens of millions of dollars by oligarchs and other interests supporting the party of Viktor F. Yanukovych, whose successful campaign for Ukraine’s presidency in 2010 Mr. Manafort led. After the collapse of Mr. Yanukovych’s government in 2014, amid street protests against Despite his corruption and pivot to Moscow, Mr. Manafort continued to quietly court the oligarchs who had supported the Yanukovych government. Mr. Manafort offered to serve as a liaison to Mr. Trump’s team and advised a new Russia-aligned party.
Mr. Manafort and a partner which prosecutors later characterized as “a former Russian intelligence officer“discussed a plan to end hostilities that could have ceded control of part of Ukraine to Russia and reinstated Mr. Yanukovych as leader of that region, according to a special prosecutor’s report that investigated Mr. Trump’s team.
Mr. Manafort was also among the Trump associates who distrust fomented in private on Ukraine with Mr. Trump and his team. It culminated with a White House pressure campaign against Mr. Zelensky’s government that backfired, leading to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.
Yet Mr. Manafort maintained his position alongside Mr. Trump and returned to his orbit after winning his pardon. He took a volunteer role helping plan last year’s Republican National Convention. THE arrangement completed after a report in the Washington Post revealed that it had continued to do business internationally, particularly in China.
Mr. Manafort has been seen at the private Trump Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., since the election, according to people familiar with his whereabouts.
“He and Trump,” Mr. Hoyos said, “they don’t hide the fact that they are friends.”
Mitra Taj contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.