DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. Terry has to be out of town today, but before she left, she recorded the interview we're about to hear with journalist Franklin Foer, who's written a new investigative profile of Paul Manafort just published in The Atlantic. Manafort served as President Trump's campaign chairman, and last October became one of four people indicted in Robert Mueller's investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Manafort first made his name in the '80s as a political consultant and lobbyist. Foer says Manafort transformed lobbying by obliterating traditional concerns about conflicts of interest. His clients eventually included authoritarian presidents, militia commanders and Russian oligarchs. He made a fortune, stashed his money in offshore tax havens then ended up deep in debt to one of the Russian oligarchs. His personal financial crisis led him to join the Trump campaign. Foer's article is titled, "American Hustler: Oligarchs, Shady Deals, Foreign Money - How Paul Manafort Helped Corrupt Washington And Laid The Groundwork For The Subversion Of American Politics" (ph).
TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Franklin Foer, welcome to FRESH AIR. So your story starts in 2015, before Paul Manafort joins the Trump campaign. And at this point, Manafort is in a clinic recovering from an emotional breakdown. He appears to have considered suicide. What led to this breakdown?
FRANKLIN FOER: Professionally, Paul Manafort's life was a mess. He'd been a very powerful political consultant and lobbyist, but he'd bet everything in his career on his work in Ukraine. He'd become the chief political adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, who had been president of Ukraine, and they developed a very personal relationship and they developed a very lucrative relationship for Paul Manafort. But after spending nearly 10 years in Ukraine, revolution had swept that government for power, and Manafort was deprived of his primary source of income and he was struggling to find anything to replace that.
Financially, Paul Manafort was struggling. He owed a Russian oligarch nearly $20 million, and that Russian oligarch wasn't going to let go of that debt. And then finally, personally, Paul Manafort was struggling. He'd had an affair which his family had uncovered. And despite telling him to go into therapy and to break off that affair, the affair continued and he was caught a second time. And he had what his daughter described as a fairly massive emotional breakdown.
Read more:
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/29/581478324/paul-manafort-joined-the-trump-campaign-in-a-state-of-despair-and-desperation
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