The Six Degrees of Paul Manafort

Under the general rubric of conspiracy theory is the subset called "coincidence theory", which dismisses connections between people as mere happenstance in order to dismiss any thought of networks that exist beyond public scrutiny. But these networks do exist. Sometimes history takes decades to find them, but they exist. Let's take a peek at networks in Paul Manafort's life.

Manafort was an advisor for four Republican presidential candidates: Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, and Bob Dole. Three of these men were connected to the CIA. Gerald Ford was on the Warren Commission and helped its conclusions of a single assassin by moving the bullet hole several inches up from JFK's back to the back of JFK's neck. It was an obvious fraud, and he should have been prosecuted as an accessory after the fact. There are other indications that he was involved with the CIA's mind control program prior to his political career. Ronald Reagan while governor of California blocked extradition requests from New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in the investigation into President Kennedy's murder. Reagan was governor at the time of JFK's brother's assassination in Los Angeles. I'll refer readers to Lisa Pease's A LIE TOO BIG TO FAIL about Reagan during that time. Reagan was also the spokesman for the Crusade For Freedom, a CIA psyop started in the 1950s which in conjunction with Radio Free Europe promoted former Nazis and fascists allied with Hitler during WWII and which imported many of these Nazis into the US. George HW Bush was the CIA Director under Ford, and investigations put him as a CIA agent or asset since his college days at Yale. I haven't looked at Bob Dole's history. But three out of four of Manafort's presidential employers had roots in the CIA.

If you look at Paul Manafort’s history, he seems to work for sleazy dictators who were either put into power by the CIA, supported while in power by the CIA or taken out of power by the CIA. And sometimes killed by the CIA. I would suggest that Manafort's ultimate employer was the CIA. After the sitting president of the Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in a US-backed coup in Ukraine back in 2014 (under Secretary of State John Kerry) Manafort stuck around there and helped the people who ousted Yanukovich. Even though Yanukovich was the duly elected president of Ukraine, he has been dismissed as a Russian agent because he saw that the terms of Russian treaties with Ukraine would be better for the economy than treaties with the European Union. Therefore, the US branded Yanukovich as a Russian agent.

Just to refresh everyone’s memory William Barr worked for the CIA in the seventies until he got his law degree. He was named Attorney General by President GHW Bush (the first Bush president) during congressional and court investigations of Iran-contra, which was a CIA operation to illegally support the contras' attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government while also illegally arming both Iraq and Iran, allegedly in exchange for releasing hostages in Beruit. The interagency team investigating the kidnappings in Beruit was on Pan Am 103 and perished returning to the US.

Robert Mueller was the prosecutor in the Pan Am 103 case. He shifted the case to a couple of Libyan jamokes and away from a group of Palestinian terrorists operating in Frankfurt, Germany who allegedly were supplied the bomb used to bring down the airliner by Syrian arms and heroin smuggler Monzer al-Kassar. Al-Kassar was a major arms supplier for the Iran-contra operation. Robert Swan Mueller III has never himself been specifically identified as being a CIA employee. However, his uncle, Richard Bissell, was an officer high in the CIA ranks. Mueller's wife, Ann Cabell Standish, whom he married three years after the John F Kennedy assassination, was the granddaughter of Charles Cabell, Deputy Director of the CIA at the time of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, who was fired by JFK along with the above-mentioned Bissell and Allen Dulles. Ann Mueller’s granduncle, Earle Cabell, the mayor of Dallas at the time of President Kennedy’s assassination there, was revealed to have been a CIA asset in a recent declassification of JFK papers.

Curiously, Mueller’s career has been marked with prosecuting cases that touch on CIA covert activities. He prosecuted John Gotti, who was on trial for distribution of cocaine which has been identified as having arrived in the US via Mena, Arkansas as part of the Iran-contra drug importation operation. Bill Clinton was the governor of Arkansas at the time. Mueller prosecuted Noriega, who was the CIA’s point man in Panama, where the CIA laundered money and moved cocaine and weapons for the contras during Iran-contra. The federal prosecutor in the Mena corner of Arkansas at the time of the Mena operations who steered clear of it was Asa Hutchinson, who went on to become George W Bush's first "drug czar". (More curiously, the person leading the failed attempt to uncover Iran-contra in the US Senate was John Kerry, who just happened to be a teammate of Mueller on their prep school lacrosse team many years earlier.) Mueller prosecuted BCCI (the international bank which laundered mob and intelligence money) without seeing CIA fingerprints. Mueller became the Director of the FBI a week before 9/11. Look it up.

Some more: Go read Gregory Craig's Wiki page. Robert Mueller just indicted Craig along the lines of Manafort, a la aiding Russians (actually representing Ukrainians). Craig himself has an interesting past. He was the lawyer defending John Hinckley for the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, which, if succcessful, would have put GHW Bush into the White House; Craig defended CIA Director Richard Helms for his part in the coup of Salvador Allende; he was the State Department's director of policy planning under Madeleine Albright; Craig worked with Bill Clinton on his impeachment proceedings; he represented the Cuban father in the Elian Gonzalez case. Craig was on the other side of the Noriega case. Mueller prosecuted Noriega and Craig defended him. Craig helped Obama flipflop his position over the FISA court and the big communications corporations who cooperated with them. Craig represented John Edwards. And, of course, he did work in UKRAINE.

I realize that some people in the left-right political universe will rejoice that a "Democrat" is being indicted, but Craig's history suggests that like Manafort, Mueller, Barr and others he represents a party across the river in Langley, Virginia. Very interesting, he and Mueller going toe to toe as Noriega was put behind bars without a hint of Noriega's Iran-contra work for Bush and the CIA. If you've got both the prosecutor and the defense attorney you're going to win the trial.

It's a small world after all, but you won't hear Rachel Maddow repeat long-winded linkages among these characters in her stories.

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Lookout's picture

in order to deceive.

CIA psyops where ever you look. Curious or should I say Q reous? Cause Q sure seems CIA to me....or so says Seth Rich...no he said DNC=CIA.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Bob In Portland's picture

@Lookout At some point the Democratic Party was rolled. Bill Clinton got the big speech at the 1988 convention. He certainly wasn't the speaker he became. That speech went on and on. Then next time around he won the presidency in a three-way race with a funny Texas billionaire and George Bush.

When Bill went to Oxford his classmates presumed he was CIA.

Our election of 1992 may have been to promote Clinton while taking the heat away from GHW Bush.

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lotlizard's picture

@Bob In Portland  
when in reality all we’ve succeeded in doing is swapping out one of their assets and swapping in another.

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arendt's picture

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Bob In Portland's picture

@arendt I was walking on the sea wall in Pacifica when John Kerry gave such a listless acceptance speech. I thought right then, "Is this guy trying to throw the election?"

Well, maybe.

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Assembling the seemingly disparate pieces (known associates, co-workers, employment, travel,etc.) helps paint a picture and a context that can put a whole different perspective from the sound bite spin of the MSM. As you point out, Manafort plied his trade for decades, and left plenty of tracks, but you would think he had only recently appeared from under some cabbage leaf if you buy the narrative that the MSM is trying to sell us.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

I had read Mueller past resume before but Manafort’s connections throughout are also very interesting.

@Leveymg would enjoy your post very much and might even have a few things to add.

So why then I must ask, did they turn on Manafort?

Too splashy for their tastes?
A sacrificial lamb albeit CIA?

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Bob In Portland's picture

@Sirena From here it looks like he'll get a pardon from Trump, but the Agency has allowed many an agent to take the fall. There was the most famous, Lee Harvey Oswald. There was an agent named Edwin Wilson years ago who set up an arms company. He was busted for selling C4 to the Khaddafy regime back in the 1970s. Wilson went to jail but pleaded that he was working for US intelligence to try to get close the the Khadaffy regime. Wilson's group were also alleged to have trained members of the PFLP-GC to build bombs. A cell of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command were suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing. By the way, Wilson's conviction was eventually overturned.

So there's that.

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@Sirena

I agree with Bob in Portland that any or all of the indicted and convicted in the current Spygate affair, except Gen. Flynn, will likely be pardoned or just serve light sentences. Papadopoulos' sentence was 14 days. He's on to the next thing. I think Flynn is a whistleblower and an enemy of the CIA, so I think they wanted him out of government even more than they want Trump out. But Manafort, Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Craig, et al, are all players, assets, "consultants," and informants. Even Deripaska has worked with Mueller in the past.

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@Bob In Portland @Linda Wood
If one reads Seymour Hersh, the Obama Admin had an axe to grind w Gen Flynn in that he didn’t go along w their narrative in Syria.

If anyone, he is the most sympathetic character to me of all and deserving of a pardon.
His crime...lying to the corrupt FBI.

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gulfgal98's picture

I find your tracking of the history of these characters fascinating. The more we know and find out about them, the more we will realize that this country is actually being run by a small and very interconnected group of people, all of whom have CIA or deep state connections.

While many here probably have already known this, I am just learning how connected they all are as a result of great essays such as yours, Bob. I hope you will continue to connect the dots for us in future essays.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98
Sometimes I think this is true for all countries at all times.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

studentofearth's picture

@gulfgal98 accountability of their actions. A circular firing squad is created to keep the mass population in an unsettled state of finger pointing and self recrimination of who voted for who.

The first election I participated in was 1980. My whole adult life has been politically and economically rigged. It doesn't mean I wasn't able to fit through a few cracks, but those opportunities are only open for short periods of time. Then sealed and those that make it through are cajoled into believing they are special or more responsible than the "losers" or "undeserving".

Our danger and opportunity is when the ruling group passes the torch to family members rather than individuals who rose through the ranks due to competence.

1) A brighter light needs to be shown on those that have been identified on the "Group".

2) A full mapping of individuals, non-government agencies (non-profits) and corporations needs to be worked on, distributed and publicized. Basically identify all "legal persons" according to the current interpretation of the constitution.

3) A full mapping of international hiding spots for money, surveillance, directed violence and food control.

American's tendency to finger point needs to be deflected to the source of power. It would also help if we would stop focusing on identifying a messiah worthy of caring the torch to our salvation. Instead look at them as individuals doing their part in removing treads from the tapestry of illusion surrounding us. Those weak spots need to be expanded into holes to shine light a little deeper and walk/run/sit/fight/spend our way to better community.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Bob In Portland's picture

@studentofearth At one point Daniel Brandt made a graph connecting various people in the dark government. It wasn't very useful for me but was a great idea.

When I write these connect-the-dot pieces, it's to hint at how things are really done at the highest levels. I've used this simile before but these public performers are like a Shakespearean troupe. This month this guy plays MacBeth, that guy plays Polonius. When they get into Henry IV Polonius becomes Falstaff.

That Robert Mueller could be a good guy to liberals is a laugh, but he's wearing a new costume this time around.

Manafort is a miserable character and he generates little sympathy from me, but he's not the evildoer that Mueller makes him out to be. He's merely a diversion.

And the current play being performed is written by the Agency, not Shakespeare.

And the concept of fake news versus real news is impossible for most to plumb because there is so little truth shared with the public.

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