Paul Manafort is in court right now and the president feels badly about it. The former Trump campaign chairman has already pleaded not guilty to new charges of witness tampering, and his lawyers are pleading with the judge not to jail him. [UPDATE] They were ultimately not successful.
During the hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson pressed a prosecutor on Mueller’s team on the question of whether Manafort currently represents a danger to the public.
The prosecutor said that Manafort is a threat because of the likelihood that he will commit new crimes.
However, Manafort’s lawyer scoffed at the idea that he was trying to tamper [with] witness[es].
Berman has yet to rule on the request to revoke Manafort’s bail, which would lead to him being jailed before his trials, or to modify the terms of his release.
Per usual, Trump simply cannot be honest about any of this:
President Donald Trump, while speaking to reporters outside the White House on Friday morning, was asked about Manafort.
“Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign,” Trump said. “I feel a little badly about it.”
“You know, Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. He worked for Ronald Reagan. He worked for Bob Dole. He worked for many others, he worked for me, what, 49 days or something. Very short period of time.”
In fact, Manafort served 144 days as Trump’s presidential campaign chairman. He was hired in late March 2016, and resigned on Aug. 19 of that year.
It’s hard to tell a bigger lie than to claim that your campaign chairman had “nothing to do with” your campaign. But that’s par for the course with this man.
His potentially bigger problem has been reported by Shimon Prokupecz of CNN.
Michael Cohen has indicated to family and friends he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators to alleviate the pressure on himself and his family, according to a source familiar with the matter.
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) June 15, 2018
Could be an exciting weekend.
