Who Is Paul Manafort: 5 Facts About About Former Trump Aide

WASHINGTON, DC — Paul Manafort, who was indicted Monday as part of special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, assembled a controversial list of clients before he joined the Trump campaign.

The indictment against Manafort and a business associate, Rick Gates, lays out a dozen charges, including conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, making false statements and several charges related to failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts. The indictment alleges the men moved money through hidden bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Seychelles.

In total, more than $75 million flowed through the offshore accounts, according to the indictment. Manafort is accused of laundering more than $18 million.

After joining the Trump campaign in March 2016, Manafort moved up quickly and was named chairman and chief strategist, but was fired in August amid reports that he took more than $12 million in undisclosed payments from former Ukrainian president and pro-Russia strongman Viktor F. Yunakovych, for whom he had worked as a political consultant for many years.

Watch: What you need to know about the Manafort-Gates indictment

But Yunakovych wasn’t the only controversial client on Manafort’s resume. Here are five things to know about Manafort.

Manafort's clients as a political lobbyist, adviser and international political consultant included dictator Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Manafort’s first lobbying firm, Black Manafort Stone & Kelly, signed a $1 million contract with a Philippine business group promoting Marcos just a few months before the regime was overthrown. He also received almost $90,000 from a Lebanese-born businessman and arms merchant in Pakistan to advise French presidential candidate and then prime minister Edouard Balladur, a payment that surfaced in the long running French investigation called the Karachi affair. And when he needed to clean up his image, Democratic Republic of Congo dictator Mobutu Sese Seko hired Manafort’s firm to put a veneer on his vices. He also worked for U.S. backed-Angolan rebel leader Joseph Savimbi, who was killed by the Angolan government forces in 2002. A 1992 report by the Center for Public Integrity titled "The Torturers' Lobby" cited Manafort's firm's work for Marcos and the UNITA rebels in Angola, as well as unsavory governments in Nigeria and Kenya.

Manafort, who was born in 1949, grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, where his father was a Republican mayor. The Manafort family’s money comes from real estate and a construction company, Manafort Brothers Inc., which was founded by Manafort’s father, an Italian immigrant. Manafort eschewed the family business, instead moving to Washington, D.C., where he earned both an undergraduate business degree and law degree at Georgetown University. He practiced law for two years, then jumped into politics. He worked as a hired gun for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush before signing on with Trump last year.

Manafort was called “The Count” by his colleagues, according to Scott Reed, who worked with him on the 1996 Republican National Convention for Bob Dole. “All he needed was a cape when he entered a meeting, like the Count of Monte Cristo. He is a serious person, proven vote counter and knows how to get the job done,” Reed told U.S. News & World Report.

In September, Jeffrey Yohai accused Manafort of conspiring to mislead a federal bankruptcy court about four troubled real estate investments in California that collectively totaled millions of dollars. Manafort and his wife, Kathleen, and his daughter, Jessica, who is divorcing Yohai, put up $4.2 million to help finance Yohai’s redevelopment efforts of the four upscale Los Angeles-area properties.

Trump and Manafort have had a business relationship since the 1980s when the Trump Organization hired his lobbying firm. Manafort and his wife bought a unit in Trump Tower in 2006, and transferred it from a limited liability corporation to his name in 2015. He and his wife still live there when they are in Manhattan.

Keep up on the latest on the Manafort indictment.

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)