But even if we suppose that this marks the most serious turn this investigation will ever take, that Messrs. Manafort and Gates have no beans to spill, it still reflects poorly on President Trump. Mr. Manafort was brought on to the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016 when it appeared possible that the candidate could be headed for a contested convention. Mr. Manafort had extensive experience in that area, having worked for Gerald Ford in 1976, and subsequently for other Republican nominees, but his ties to the pro-Russia regime of former Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych were hardly a secret; they showed up in the very first New York Times blog post about his hiring. (He had also worked for other unsavory international characters, including Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo; the Daily Beast headlined an article at the time of his hiring by the campaign "Top Trump Aide Led the 'Torturers' Lobby'" detailing his work with another top Trump adviser, Roger Stone.)