Manafort attended a June 2016 meeting with Russians at Trump tower set up by Donald Trump Jr. He received emails from former Trump aide George Papadopoulos, who had been informed that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. He was campaign chairman when Wikileaks began publishing emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee by hackers that US intelligence has linked to Russia. He may have knowledge of Trump’s business relationships in Russia. He may have been party to campaign conversations about how to handle news of the Russia investigation.

Manafort essentially took over the campaign as of mid-April 2016 and was Trump’s go-to man during a critical period of the campaign,” de la Vega told the Guardian. “Reporting shows that Trump called Manafort 20 times a day, and, of course, Manafort knows the whole story of the Trump Tower meeting and events before and after.