Paul Manna, a longtime Republican strategist who served as Donald J. Trump's 2016 campaign chairman and helped thwart efforts to block the party's nomination at the convention, was jailed and pardoned by Trump. Mr. Fort began advising efforts leading up to the Republican National Convention. .
Mr. Manafort is a lobbyist with decades of experience working with foreign governments and extensive experience working on past Republican conventions, two people briefed on the matter said. He was attending a meeting in Milwaukee.
Manafort's appearance at the convention has been expected for weeks and has already caused controversy, with Trump's advisers discussing having him work on the event without pay.
Manafort did not respond to messages seeking comment. Trump campaign spokespeople and the RNC did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Mr. Manafort, 75, served as an adviser to Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign and ran the Republican convention that year. He was brought into Trump's campaign in the spring of 2016 as Trump faced efforts to strip him of the delegates he needed to become a candidate at his party's convention.
Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign was relatively short-lived. He was expelled in August 2016, in part due to headlines about his activities with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Mr. Manafort then became embroiled in Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Manafort was one of the few advisers to President Trump to receive a prison sentence. Trump praised Manafort for not cooperating with government investigations and pardoned him at the end of his presidential term. The Washington Post reported this week that Manafort is once again working for foreign interests and politicians, including with a Chinese entertainment streaming service. He denied working for the service, but told the paper he had introduced potential partners in the United States.
Manafort's exact role in the tournament remains unclear. He is expected to be involved in advising on the platform committee's staffing, but is not expected to be involved in the substance of the platform itself, one of the people briefed on the matter said.
The platform debate will be especially important for the party this year. In 2020, the Republican Party did not adopt a new platform amid a series of changes to its convention due to the coronavirus pandemic, simply reverting to its 2016 platform.
And in a controversy that received little attention at the time, language was inserted into the platform watering down language supporting Ukraine with military aid against Russia's invasion. The language change was one of the issues Mueller sought information on during the investigation.
