Stephen Bannon told Jared Kushner to avoid Paul Manafort 'like the plague'

Despite formally resigning in August 2016, Paul Manafort was still advising the Trump campaign three days before the election, Buzzfeed News reports.

Beginning in April, Buzzfeed filed five separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in an effort to obtain all the subpoenas and search warrants former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team executed during its investigation into 2016 election interference. The first round of documents were published Saturday, highlighted by emails and other various forms of correspondence that were subject to investigation.

The Manafort revelation came to light in emails exchanged between Manafort, Stephen Bannon, and Jared Kushner. On Nov. 5, 2016, Manafort emailed Kushner, explaining how he was "really feeling good" about President Trump's prospects in the upcoming election, before mentioning he sent a memo to former White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, and also briefed Rick Gates and Fox News' Sean Hannity. Kushner then forwarded the email to Bannon, who told Trump's son-in-law that, although Manafort was a "nice guy" they needed to "avoid him like the plague." Bannon's reasoning was that their opponents would say "the Russians worked with wiki leaks to give this victory to us," which happened anyway. Read more at Buzzfeed News. Tim O'Donnell

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