Question of the Day: Why Did Paul Manafort Agree to Become Trump’s Campaign Manager?

As a side note on the Manafort indictment, this is yet another example of the peculiar arrogance of powerful men in Washington. The poster child for this has long been Gary Hart, who famously dared reporters to follow him around when he was suspected of having an affair with Donna Rice. That ended badly.

And now we have Paul Manafort. According to today’s indictment, he spent years engaged in a wide-ranging scheme of money laundering to the tune of $75 million. If you’ve done something like this, your best lifestyle choice is to stay very, very quiet. Attract no attention. Stay as far away as possible from reporters and FBI agents.

So what does Manafort do? He signs on as campaign manager for the biggest, loudest, brassiest presidential campaign in recent history. Practically his first actions were related to defending Russia for a candidate who was already suspected of being a little too simpatico with Vladimir Putin. He was almost literally daring reporters to investigate him.

Why? Do people like this figure that if they’ve gotten away with something for years, they’ll get away with it forever? Are they so smitten with their own brilliance that they can barely conceive of being outwitted by anyone else? Do they just not think at all? It is a mystery.

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Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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