This is John Batchelor. Craig Unger, the author of House of Trump, House of Putin,

reminds us about Paul Manafort, campaign manager for Donald Trump in his first presidential run in

2016, but then convicted of various crimes, chiefly not registering as a foreign agent for countries such

as Ukraine and others,

and served time in jail, was let out because of the COVID risk to his health.

It is now back in full glory.

He's a great shopper.

Three land rovers in a row lined at once.

What is wonderful about this is that he's now found a good client, Vladimir Putin.

Here, Craig explains.

Paul Manafort, back on top.

More of this tonight.

Oh, absolutely.

And he's using his oligarchs to do that.

I mean, if you think of Russia as a mafia state, he's essentially, where in the United States,

we had the five families.

He's got more than that.

But he doles out one industry after another.

Oleg Deripaska controls the aluminum industry and is a multi-billionaire.

And he's done that with a dozen or so oligarchs who are allowed to keep their monopoly on whatever industry it is so long as they are serving Putin's aims.