Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Special Counsel Robert Mueller busted Paul Manafort on Monday. The charges included money laundering, tax evasion and failure to register as a foreign agent.

But there was no mention of President Trump colluding with Russians to steal the election. Which Trump was quick to tweet. What he didn’t tweet is why he hired a swamp creature like Manafort to run his campaign in the first place.

Manafort served as Trump’s campaign manager in the summer of 2016.

Swamp Creature Comforts

Prior to that gig Manafort took in $75 million representing the pro-Russian party in Ukraine. Here’s what National Review’s Kevin Williamson has to say about the president’s swamp creature:

In 1980, he founded a lobbying firm with Roger Stone, one of the most disreputable figures in Washington — no minor distinction — a habitual liar who boasts of his dishonesty and whose entrée into politics was setting up Richard Nixon’s dirty-tricks operation.

Manafort has earned a fortune working as a lobbyist for corrupt foreign governments and thugs and kleptocrats ranging from Mobutu Sese Seko to Ferdinand Marcos.

In the indictment Manafort’s accused of stashing Ukranian money in offshore accounts and using it to buy real estate in the U.S. Then he took out loans on those properties to raise cash to fund his lavish lifestyle, without paying taxes.

The future Trump campaign manager also used some of that money to hire the Podesta Group to seek favors for his Ukranian client. Tony Podesta resigned from his firm the same day Manafort was indicted.

Tony’s brother, John Podesta, was Hillary’s campaign manager.