Paul Manafort, a former aide to President Donald Trump, was removed from a plane bound to Dubai for carrying a revoked passport, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta told the AP Manafort was removed from the Emirates Airline flight Sunday night at Miami International Airport “without incident.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the specifics of the incident, telling NBC News, “For privacy reasons, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is unable to discuss a specific individual’s arrival or departure into or from the United States.”
Former Trump adviser Paul Manafort was removed from a plane at Miami International Airport before it took off for Dubai because he carried a revoked passport. https://t.co/nqiPZt5Sqh
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 23, 2022
Manafort served as Trump’s campaign chairman throughout the 2016 campaign, before resigning three months before the presidential election. He was convicted on five counts of tax fraud, one count of hiding foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud in 2018 by a federal jury in Virginia as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.
Trump pardoned Manafort weeks before leaving office, saying, “As a result of blatant prosecutorial overreach, Mr. Manafort has endured years of unfair treatment and is one of the most prominent victims of what has been revealed to be perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American history.” He received a “full and complete pardon,” according to a statement from the White House. (RELATED: ‘This Is Rotten To The Core’: Ben Sasse Flames Trump Over Latest Round Of Pardons)
The former campaign chairman thanked the 45th president on Twitter, writing, “my family & I humbly thank you for the Presidential Pardon you bestowed on me. Words cannot fully convey how grateful we are.”