From TRD New York: In late July, around the time the FBI raided his Virginia home, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was out making real estate deals.
Manafort, who spent decades as a Washington power broker for oligarchs and dictators, was attending a meeting at the New York office of architecture firm Perkins Eastman. The group, which included representatives from engineering firm Langan, sipped Trump-branded water and perused printed materials.
There with Manafort was his client Yan Jiehe, the billionaire who heads Pacific Construction Group, China’s largest privately owned builder. Manafort had been working with Jiehe since at least the spring, advising the company on global infrastructure contracts. According to Brad Zackson, Manafort’s real estate fixer and the man who brought all the parties together for the July meeting, Manafort was helping Pacific identify U.S. construction firms that were ripe for acquisition.