President Donald Trump claims he never would have hired his campaign manager Paul Manafort if he had known he was being investigated for his work with the Ukraine and slammed the Department of Justice on Sunday for not telling him.
He argued he should have been told the information since he was a nominee for president.
He also mocked his own Justice Department by tweeting with the word ‘Justice’ in quote marks.
President Trump slammed the Justice Department in a tweet
Trump also criticized then FBI-director James Comey
‘As only one of two people left who could become President, why wouldn’t the FBI or Department of ‘Justice’ have told me that they were secretly investigating Paul Manafort (on charges that were 10 years old and had been previously dropped) during my campaign? Should have told me!,’ he wrote.
He also claimed Manafort would have never joined his team if he had known, arguing then-FBI director James Comey should have told him.
‘Paul Manafort came into the campaign very late and was with us for a short period of time (he represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole & many others over the years), but we should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him, and he wouldn’t have been hired!,’ he tweeted.
The president also cheered on conservative commentator Jesse Watters, who was on ‘Fox and Friends’ Sunday morning, for his comment about the Russian investigation into the 2016 election.
‘Jesse Watters ‘The only thing Trump obstructed was Hillary getting to the White House.’ So true!,’ the president wrote.
Manafort was involved in the Trump campaign for five months in 2016 and served as campaign chairman for three of those.
There was speculation that Trump’s pardon of conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza and his musing he may offer pardons to others, like Martha Stewart, was a message to his allies that he has their backs.
But former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told Fox News Sunday: ‘This is not a sign.’
Manafort has been charged under special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian’s role in the 2016 election. He has plead not guilty in both cases.
CNN reported last year Manafort had been under FBI surveillance before and after the election. He has reportedly been under investigation since 2014.
He’s scheduled for trial in Washington D.C. in September and in Alexandria, Va., in July on felony counts that include conspiracy, bank and tax fraud, money laundering and failing to register as a lobbyist in his work before 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.
He formally registered as a lobbyist for the Ukraine in June 2017, after his work for that country was revealed.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship. The law included criminal penalties but is not always aggressively enforced.
Trump has long argued Mueller’s investigation is a ‘witch hunt.’
In early May, the president seized on a federal judge who accused Mueller’s probe of trying to get Manafort to ‘sing’ simply to impeach Trump, telling a cheering crowd: ‘I’ve been saying that for a long time. It’s a witch hunt.’
President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t have hired Paul Manafort as his campaign manger if he had known he was under investigation for his work with Ukraine
Paul Manafort has been charged under special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian’s role in the 2016 election. He has plead not guilty in both cases.
He spoke hours after U.S. Senior Judge T.S. Ellis III asked pointed questions about Mueller’s authority to bring charges against Manafort – and suggested that prosecutors’ true motive is getting Manafort to ‘sing’.
He also called Manafort ‘a nice guy’ saying ‘he worked for me for just a short period of time, a couple of months’.
And he said that Manafort had previously worked for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and ‘I think’ John McCain and added: ‘Does anybody say that? No!’