Paul Manafort In Albania — Because America Is Really Bad At Dealing With Treason
Our failings allow Russian assets to continue infecting the world
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When I began writing my American Monster series about the network of criminals accelerating global fascism I began with Paul Manafort.
He’d taken about $70 million dollars from Putin cutouts to install a pro-Russian puppet as president of Ukraine — using slogans like ‘lock her up’ — before signing on to the Trump campaign ‘pro bono’ to install a pro-Russian puppet as president of the US — using slogans like ‘lock her up.’
Later, I would document how the same tactics were duplicated in dozens of countries.
Because America is really bad at dealing with actual treason, those who participated in the greatest crime in American history — the 2016 election attack — are free to continue their malfeasance in the US and throughout the world.
From my American Monster report on Manafort:
With his stellar credentials in reputation washing murderers, Manafort was hired to work in Ukraine for a pro-Russian political party, Party of Regions, which was dedicated to destroying NATO. In his decade as a consultant to POR, he reputation washed its primary leader, Viktor Yanukovych. The party was financed by Russian friendly oligarchs and along with promoting anti-NATO talking points, it also repeatedly produced anti-Western rhetoric.
The amount of money Manafort earned working for pro-Russian interests, tens of millions of dollars, surely makes him more spy than consultant, particularly when investigators in the West noted Yanukovych and POR’s ties to organized crime.
Election fraud, a poisoned leader, an opposition leader locked up — all part of the legacy of that period in Ukraine. As my friend Matt Bevan noted in his podcast, Russia, Are You Listening:
“Manafort took millions of dollars from the Ukrainians, he failed to report himself as a foreign agent, he failed to pay taxes on that money and he hid it through offshore accounts. It’s absolutely cut and dry…”
“At the convention, the Trump campaign asked for just one policy change, just one, ‘don’t sell weapons to the Ukraine to fight the Russians.’”
From my Roger Stone American Monster report:
This is a series about American monsters — both Paul Manafort and Roger Stone played key roles in accelerating global fascism by reaping millions in lobbying fees representing brutal dictators and then grooming a Russian asset, with ties to multiple foreign dictatorships, for president*….
In a 1992 report from the Center for Public Integrity, their lobbying firm was listed as ‘one of the firms profiting the most by doing business with foreign governments that violate their people’s human rights’. To take this out of the abstract, one client — Angola’s Jonas Savimbi — burned his opponents alive.
“When people think of Washington corruption, they think of organizations like Black, Manafort, & Stone that shook down dictators, took all their money, and then tried to take America’s government and make them serve the dictators’ interest. It IS the swamp.”—Jane Mayer, New Yorker
As I have reported many times during the past decade, Manafort’s clients often had to flee their countries, as citizens revolted against the corrupt leaders he helped put in power.
Americans were so caught up in spectacle they failed to look further over the waves and see that it not only could happen here, it was happening here, and the same people were responsible.
When I was on a panel last weekend at the Byline Festival in the UK, talking about the transatlantic rift, it was important to me to update the audience on what Paul Manafort had been up to lately.
Most recently, he’s been in Albania, working with a Trump-like politician whose trial on corruption charges began today.
Sound familiar?
Along with Chris LaCivita, who served as co-campaign manager of Trump 2024, and Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, Manafort — despite being convicted in 2018 of crimes that included secretly lobbying for Putin’s interests — took the gig of working for former prime minister and president Sali Berisha, the head of Albania’s right-wing Democratic Party, who challenged Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Berisha, who hoped Trump would reverse sanctions barring him from entering the US, also signed a six-million-dollar contract with the Republican consulting and lobbying firm, Continental Strategy, whose staff includes the daughter of White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
Berisha’s campaign included the promise to ‘Make Albania Great Again’…
Albania’s SPAK, the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime, is investigating their relationship.
Berisha, his wife and children were barred from entering the US in May of 2021, when former Secretary of State Antony Blinken sanctioned Berisha for alleged ‘significant corruption’ and the UK subsequently followed.
During his 2005-2013 tenure as prime minister, Berisha was accused of misappropriation of public funds to enrich himself, political cronies, and family.
Last year, Berisha was charged with corruption tied to helping his son-in-law in an alleged scheme to privatize public land to build apartment buildings in the capital, Tirana. He spent time under house arrest after refusing to cooperate with court terms. Berisha is claiming persecution.
So of course Manafort worked for him.
Win some, lose some.
Socialist Prime Minister Rama beat Berisha comfortably thanks to the country’s pro-EU stance. Rama said Albania is hoping to join the EU bloc by 2030.
One way to Make Albania Great Again is to keep Putin’s thugs out of its elections.
One day, all Americans will know the truth about 2016.
In the meantime, I’ll keep reporting.
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Thanks for the update! About a year ago I was trying to find out where he was residing, and last I heard he was going to China to start a "Netflix" type network. This makes more sense.
Google the names "Stone" "Schlanger" and "Caddy" simultaneously.