Felon louche lobbyist PAUL JOHN MANAFORT, JR, poised to rejoin Trump world, aided Chinese media deal. (WaPo)

Ex-con convicted felon pardoned by TRUMP, on the way back to working for TRUMP.  From The Washington Post: 

Paul Manafort, poised to rejoin Trump world, aided Chinese media deal

The former Trump campaign chairman, who’s likely to help manage this summer’s GOP convention, resumed consulting work after being pardoned in 2020.

By Isaac Stanley-Becker

, 

Beth Reinhard

 and 

Josh Dawsey

May 10, 2024 at 8:20 a.m. EDT

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort walks the floor at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 21, 2016. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

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After pleading guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice, Paul Manafort, the globe-trotting political consultant and former campaign chairman for Donald Trump, asked for leniency in his sentencing, telling a federal judge five years ago that he was nearly 70 years old, struggling with health concerns and remorseful for his actions.

The judge rejected his entreaties in the spring of 2019, ordering Manafort to remain behind bars for more than seven years. Less than two years later, however, Manafort’s criminal record was wiped clean when Trump pardoned him. He was among the dozens of allies, extended family members and former campaign staffers allowed to walk free.

With his freedom, Manafort hardly retired to a quiet home life. Instead, the longtime power broker — briefly brought low by the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — reengaged in international consulting, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with his activities who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Manafort has been assisting an effort to launch a Netflix-like mobile streaming and entertainment platform in China that, according to corporate documents, has the endorsement of the Chinese government. In an email to The Post, Manafort said he was “not involved with China” and has “had nothing to do with China, including Chinese businesses, government, individuals, or anything else,” but acknowledged that he “was asked to make introductions to U.S. studios and potential U.S. partners in the venture.”

Manafort, now 75, also sought to advise political figures in Japan and South Korea, according to a person who was approached by party officials in those countries checking on the consultant’s reputation. Manafort has roamed widely, traveling to Guatemala last year on the invitation of a migrant advocacy group called Proyecto Guatemala Migrante. The group’s leader, Verónica Pimentel, said she and a colleague discussed Latin American politics and the Latino vote with Manafort and introduced him to a Guatemalan presidential candidate, Ricardo Sagastume, who confirmed the meeting.

Emails, documents and interviews fill in details of Manafort’s life and work between 2020, when he swapped prison for home confinement owing to the coronavirus pandemic and then landed a pardon from Trump, and this election cycle, as he prepares to reenter Trump’s orbit. Advisers say Trump is determined to hire Manafort, likely handing him a substantial role at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, because he appreciates that his onetime campaign chairman has remained loyal to him even while serving in prison.

As in 2016, Manafort has offered to work for free. He has met with Republicans in recent weeks about his role at the convention, though Trump advisers have not yet vetted any foreign activities and said last week they were not aware of his consulting work and would want to review it before the convention, according to people familiar with the planning.

Manafort’s support for the Chinese media venture, which has not been previously reported, may test Trump’s willingness to rely on figures with foreign entanglements and potential financial conflicts of interest. In 2020, a bipartisan Senate panel described Manafort’s connections to pro-Russian figures as a “grave counterintelligence threat.” Now he has made introductions for individuals seeking to do business with an increasingly assertive China, at the very moment that Trump’s GOP is presenting itself as a foe of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.