Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort resigns, FBI investigates Ukraine corruption

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Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort resigns, FBI investigates Ukraine corruption.

Paul Manafort, right, checks the teleprompter ahead
 of a Donald Trump speech in New York in June.
 He resigned as Mr Trump's campaign manager over the weekend


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  by Chris Strohm Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin

Paul Manafort, a Republican political operative since the 1970s, was supposed to impose order on Donald Trump's chaotic presidential campaign.

On Friday, the chaos devoured him.

Weeks of sliding poll numbers and false starts had sapped Manafort's credibility inside the campaign. A cooling relationship with Trump turned hot last weekend when the candidate erupted, blaming Manafort for a damaging newspaper article detailing the campaign's internal travails, according to three people briefed on the episode.

Then a wave of reports about Manafort's business dealings with Russia-aligned leaders in Ukraine, involving allegations of millions of dollars in cash payments and secret lobbying efforts in the United States, threw a spotlight on a glaring vulnerability for Trump: his admiration for President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

"This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign," Trump said in a statement Friday. "I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today."

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