Penn Jillette lost on Apprentice in 2013 and was asked by the powers that be on the show...

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whether he would vote for Don the Con as President before they gave the win to the other finalist. ( see; http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017396426 )
see: Penn Jillette lost Celebrity Apprentice, but wins for the atheist label for proof as to when he was on the show. So Don the Con's people were plotting his campaign for at least a couple of years before his announcement.

" Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html

Maybe Manafort was paid in advance (with more to come perhaps) for his work on The Con's campaign? He is allegedly not being paid for his work on the campaign--- a claim quite bizarre considering the known motivations of the people involved.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512367666

[DetlefK]

1. Your argument is farfetched.

Trump already pondered running in 2012, he just didn't feel like actually doing it. Asking somebody one year later if he would hypothetically vote for you, you either have to be planning to run in the future and/or you have to be a narcissist.

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2. How does his being a narcississt who's planning on running make it far-fetched?

And it might be wrong, I agree, but I was just pondering what the mechanism was for paying Manafort because we all know he isn't working for free. How badly DOES Don the Con want to crack the Russian market? How much collusion is there, really, between he and Putin? How entangled is their relationship?