My take is that, clearly, Paul Manafort was desperately seeking a sequence of loans (backed by transparently fraudulent paperwork) to pay the vig on money owed to a connected Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska, a serious man, who wanted $19 million or so from Manafort for a relationship they'd established during Manafort's time in Ukraine, as reported here.
This activity was going on all through late 2015-early 2016, just before Manafort volunteered his services to the Trump campaign, gratis. He got on board in March of 2016, just as his latest loan application was turned down, and by June had replaced Corey Lewandowski as Trump's campaign manager.
He saw his erstwhile client's wishes granted when the Republican platform regarding Ukraine was altered at the convention just weeks after he replaced Lewandowski.
He lasted little more than two months in the job, although during that time he did in fact manage to convince an officer of an obscure Chicago bank that he'd be named Secretary of the Army while securing a $16 million loan from said bank.
Whether his debt to the Russian has now been settled or merely postponed is an open question.
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