President Donald Trump began his Sunday morning by taking a couple shots at the FBI and its disgraced former director, James Comey.
The president specifically took issue with Comey never informing him during the presidential election two years ago that his temporary campaign manager Paul Manafort was under investigation over some shady past actions.
“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 tweeted.
Notice his clever decision to put “Justice” in quotes, thus signaling his belief — one shared by many — that then-President Barack Hussein Obama’s scandal-plagued DOJ was more-so representative of injustice rather than justice.
“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!” Trump continued.
Look:
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2018
….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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2018
Trump brought Manafort, a political consultant, into his campaign in March of 2016 and named him campaign manager in June. Two months later Manafort stepped down after word finally broke that he was under investigation for accepting millions of dollars in ill-gotten goods from former Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Here’s the catch: The probe into the president’s temporary campaign manager reportedly began in 2014, two years before the president even hired him, but roughly a year after Trump made him his campaign manager.
The FBI likewise wiretapped Manafort before and after the election. Yet the agency never told Trump about its investigation. Why?
Manafort has since been indicted by special counselor Robert Mueller, though he’s pleaded not guilty. While he’s still technically an innocent man, the president’s point Sunday was that he would not have hired him in the first place had he known he was a criminal suspect. But Trump was never even informed about the allegations.
Here’s the second catch: The FBI interviewed Manafort twice before he even signed up with Trump’s campaign, suggesting that it wasn’t just the FBI that withheld information from him — his own campaign manager did as well.
Some argue that Trump’s campaign should have done a better job vetting Manafort. Others, including the president, maintain that everyone should have simply been more honest with him.
Via BPR
