President Donald Trump dismissed the conviction of former campaign manager Paul Manafort on eight criminal counts Tuesday as a “witch hunt,” reiterating a line of attack he has used for months to criticize special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference.
“This has nothing to do with Russian collusion,” Trump told reporters in Charleston, W.Va. “This started as Russian collusion...this is a witch hunt that ends in disgrace. But this has nothing to do [with] what they started out, looking for Russians involved in our campaign. . . . I must tell you that Paul Manafort’s a good man,” he said.
Read: Cohen pleads guilty to campaign-finance violations as Manafort found guilty of tax fraud
Also see: Trump has the power to pardon Cohen and Manafort — but will he?
Trump didn’t comment on the decision of his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to plead guilty to eight criminal charges, and the White House directed questions about Cohen to Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani said in a statement that “there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”
In his more than hour-long rally in West Virginia, Trump makes no mention of Manafort or Cohen.
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) August 22, 2018
