The biggest question about Donald Trump’s former campaign chair and adviser turns out to be: How the holy hell did he get away with it for so long? Because if the dictionary had an entry for “international criminal,” Paul Manafort’s picture would be printed next to the definition.

Not only did Manafort, along with partners that included not just Rick Gates, but Roger Stone, spend decades promoting the world’s biggest collection of murderous, dictatorial, autocrats—which earned Manafort’s firm the nickname The Torturer’s Lobby—he also was the miracle recipient of multiple million dollar loans that seemed to pop up from nowhere. Not only did Manafort himself fail to register as a foreign agent through decades of working for thumb-breakers, he also helped illegally route foreign funds to US lobbying firms.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) laws may be toothless. But Manafort didn’t just flout his disdain for registering as a foreign agent, he was money-laundering with a scale and openness that showed he was laughing in the face of every state and federal agency.

Just how big a crook was the man who steered Donald Trump through the primaries, managed his platform actions, and arranged the Republican convention? This big.

Manafort currently has three US passports, each under a different number. He has submitted 10 passport applications in roughly as many years, prosecutors said.

This year, Manafort traveled to Mexico, China and Ecuador with a phone and email account registered under a fake name. (The name was not disclosed in the filings.) ...

In some months, like while he served as Trump's national campaign chairman in August 2016, Manafort's assessment of his total worth fluctuated. In August 2016 he said his assets were worth $28 million, then wrote he had $63 million in assets on a different application.

That’s just a small slice out of the list of “why didn’t someone stop this man” that was Paul Manafort’s life for year, after year, after year.