I've long been suspicious of the insertion of Paul Manafort into the Trump campaign. I haven't seen any solid evidence that he was a plant, but the circumstances have always seemed fishy to me. After all, his mere presence on the campaign gave at least superficial credibility to the fledgling Russia Hoax narrative.
Long ago a trusted source told me that the Clinton campaign had very early on come to the conclusion that Trump would be the most dangerous GOP candidate, from a Clinton perspective. That would have meant that the Clinton organization would have mobilized to take Trump down, and the Russia narrative seems to have been decided on at an early date. Thus we see the persistent attempt by Felix Sater to somehow link Trump to the moribund Trump Moscow project, the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya, etc.
The usual story is that Manafort was introduced into the Trump campaign through the efforts of Tom Barrack, a Syrian born real estate magnate who was friends with both Trump and Manafort. Barrack had been a major help to Ivanka and Jared Kushner in a difficult real estate situation and used that connection to urge the Kushners to get Barrack onto the campaign. Sound familiar? Sound possible? Of course. The question is: Was there an ulterior motive to all this?
I just came across an article by Diana West at Epoch Times which first appeared in February, 2019: Paul Manafort: A Time Bomb? While the article doesn't pretend to offer proof that Manafort was maneuvered onto the Trump campaign by anti-Trump forces, what it does is paint a portrait of Manafort as a troubled and even desperate figure who would be susceptible to pressure. For what it's worth, here is that picture of Manafort, gleaned for articles in The Atlantic and the WaPo:
