October 30, 2017

Question of the Day: Why Did Paul Manafort Agree to Become Trump’s Campaign Manager?

As a side note on the Manafort indictment, this is yet another example of the peculiar arrogance of powerful men in Washington. The poster child for this has long been Gary Hart, who famously dared reporters to follow him around when he was suspected of having an affair with Donna Rice. That ended badly.

And now we have Paul Manafort. According to today’s indictment, he spent years engaged in a wide-ranging scheme of money laundering to the tune of $75 million. If you’ve done something like this, your best lifestyle choice is to stay very, very quiet. Attract no attention. Stay as far away as possible from reporters and FBI agents.

So what does Manafort do? He signs on as campaign manager for the biggest, loudest, brassiest presidential campaign in recent history. Practically his first actions were related to defending Russia for a candidate who was already suspected of being a little too simpatico with Vladimir Putin. He was almost literally daring reporters to investigate him.

Why? Do people like this figure that if they’ve gotten away with something for years, they’ll get away with it forever? Are they so smitten with their own brilliance that they can barely conceive of being outwitted by anyone else? Do they just not think at all? It is a mystery.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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