Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump Just Hired His Next Scandal

His convention strategy is in the hands of a former lobbyist who's been linked to one corruption scheme after another.

April 13, 2016 at 4:31 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

He's got a man with a plan.
Photographer: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

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Here is an irony of the 2016 election season. The candidate promising voters that he won't be influenced by Washington lobbyists is counting on the influence of a Washington lobbyist to save his presidential campaign.

Late last month Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort -- who has represented his organization in Washington -- to make sure his delegates at this summer's convention in Cleveland actually end up voting for him. And for this task, Manafort is well-qualified. He ran delegate operations for the campaigns of Gerald Ford in 1976 and Bob Dole in 1996.