Paul Manafort, the longtime Republican strategist and chairman of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign, who had assumed an unpaid role advising party officials on the nominating convention, stepped aside on Saturday after questions arose about his involvement in the convention’s planning process.

Mr. Manafort’s move came after The New York Times reported that he had been on the ground in Milwaukee last week for planning meetings for the convention, as well as a Washington Post story that said he was involved in work connected to foreign officials and businesses.

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has agreed to pay $3.15 million to settle a civil case brought by the Justice Department last year over undeclared foreign bank accounts, court documents show.

The big picture: The lawsuit, filed in April 2022, alleged that Manafort failed to report over 20 foreign bank accounts, which he controlled in countries including Cyprus, the United Kingdom, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in 2013 and 2014.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) needs to be fixed. After the 2016 presidential election, there was a marked increase in concern about Russian and Chinese influence in U.S. politics, and many turned to FARA as a potential answer. The Act has provided needed transparency around lobbying by foreign governments and led to recent high profile prosecutions, including of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort.

Paul Manafort came of age in New Britain, Connecticut. His father, the garrulous mayor of that decaying factory town, taught him how to cobble together an electoral coalition, passing down the tricks of the trade that became the basis for the son’s lucrative career as a political consultant. But as the local hardware manufacturers fled to foreign shores, the Mafia moved into town. To hear the local papers tell the story—or to read the counts alleged in a prosecutor’s indictment—Paul’s father, the local political boss, served as a protector of the DeCavalcante family.

Paul Manafort's state charges in New York were thrown out by a judge on Wednesday in a dramatic court victory for the former Trump campaign chairman.

He won a claim that the prosecution brought by Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance, was invalidated by 'double jeopardy' laws because it overlapped with the federal crimes of which he was convicted earlier this year.

However Manafort remains in federal custody and is not scheduled for release until Christmas Day 2024.

A New York judge Wednesday tossed the real estate fraud case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance against Paul Manafort, ruling that the charges violated the state’s double jeopardy laws.

Vance's office accused Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, of falsifying business records to obtain millions of dollars in residential mortgage loans in a scam that began in December 2015 and continued until three days before Trump's 2017 inauguration.

A New York judge tossed a state criminal case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, saying the indictment violated a law that protects defendants from being prosecuted for the same crimes twice.

Mr. Manafort, 70 years old, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence after his federal convictions on bank and tax fraud, among other crimes. Mr. Manafort didn’t appear in court Wednesday due to health issues, the judge said.

It is in connection with Paul Manafort that we encounter some genuine collusion targeting the 2016 campaign: willful collaboration among foreign governments, the Obama administration, and the Clinton campaign.

Just a week after the campaign introduced Carter Page as a Trump foreign policy adviser, it announced that Manafort had been brought on board, too. The consultant was an old political hand, experienced managing the rough-and-tumble of a convention fight.

Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig goes on trial Monday, accused of making false statements connected to work he did on behalf of powerful interests in Ukraine.

Craig, a top attorney in Democratic political circles who worked for two Democratic presidents, was indicted in April on two counts of providing false statements to the Justice Department related to his Ukraine work. The judge presiding over the case threw out one of those counts last week, but Craig will still go to trial on the single remaining count.

(CNN)One of Washington's most well-known and accomplished lawyers, the former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, goes to trial Monday in Washington in a case likely to be seen as a litmus test for the Justice Department's efforts regarding foreign lobbying.