Eight Years Ago, I Exposed Paul Manafort's Blood Money

The story reads like a warning we ignored.

In September 2017, while most journalists were still untangling the Trump-Russia connections, I published an investigation that mapped Paul Manafort's decade-long criminal enterprise—from his $10 million Kremlin contracts to the Ukrainian blood on his Italian suits. Federal agents had just raided his Alexandria apartment, photographing those same suits as evidence. His own daughter had called his wealth "blood money" after 100 Ukrainian protesters died during the regime he helped install.

The story revealed how Manafort engineered Viktor Yanukovych's rise in Ukraine using the same divisive tactics he'd later deploy in America. How he laundered millions through Cypriot banks and Caribbean shell companies. How he faked a mechanical issue with Trump's plane to force the selection of Mike Pence as VP. How his surveillance by the FBI captured conversations that would expose a conspiracy reaching from Moscow to Trump Tower.

What strikes me now, rereading this investigation, is how clearly the blueprint was laid out. Manafort's playbook—foment division, corrupt democratic processes, funnel dark money through offshore havens, leave bodies in the streets if necessary—wasn't confined to Eastern Europe. He brought it home. The pre-dawn raid I described would lead to his conviction on eight felony counts. The offshore schemes I exposed would become evidence in federal court. The Russian connections I traced would define an entire presidency.

Yet here we are in 2025, with many of the same players repositioned in power, the same tactics refined and redeployed. The warning signs were there, documented and detailed.

We all know what befell Ukraine in the years since; and yet we are content to watch Trump withdraw from NATO's Eastern front, allowing Putin an open pathway to World War 3. If things end up like Ukraine, Trump will be long gone—possibly in Russia like Yanukovych—when someone else will be left to defend the American republic.

Here’s the story of Paul Manafort - Trump’s former campaign chairman and Russia’s dirty trickster.

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