Key Point: “ … [E]x-advisers, conspiracy theorists and convicted felons are now knocking on the [Trump] campaign’s door — and some are getting in.”

Axios: Trump eyes convicts and conspiracists for 2024 reunion

By: Sophia Cai and Alex Thompson

• Sidelined characters from former President Trump’s past campaigns — “crazies,” some of his top advisers call them — are reattaching themselves to his inner circle now that he’s locked up the Republican nomination.

• … [E]x-advisers, conspiracy theorists and convicted felons are now knocking on the campaign’s door — and some are getting in. They’re returning as Trump more aggressively touts Jan. 6 rioters as “patriots,” ramps up his racist, incendiary rhetoric — and embraces some of his most provocative loyalists.

• Trump’s team is in talks to hire 2016 campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski, The Washington Post and The New York Times first reported. Manafort spent two years in prison on a 7½-year sentence for bank and tax fraud before being freed because of the COVID pandemic. Lewandowski, who was fired in 2016 as Trump’s first campaign manager, was removed from a pro-Trump PAC in 2021 after the wife of a major donor accused him of inappropriate behavior.

• Longtime political operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone — who was convicted of obstructing a congressional probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign and sentenced to 40 months in prison before Trump commuted the sentence — has been a frequent presence at Mar-a-Lago lately.

• The Republican National Committee (RNC) just hired Christina Bobb, a far-right lawyer and former One America News (OAN) anchor who helped Trump promote false allegations that the 2020 election had been stolen. The RNC — now controlled by Trump’s team — brought on Bobb, who has worked in Trump’s 2020 and 2024 campaigns, as senior counsel for “election integrity.”

• Trump’s top campaign advisers have dealt with some far-right personalities by directing them to one of the several Trump-aligned PACs, which operate separately from the campaign, two people familiar with the situation tell Axios. Trump maintains warm relationships with them — and has regular phone calls with some, without always telling his advisers beforehand.