Trump Blames FBI for Not Warning Him About Paul Manafort

“[W]e should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him.”

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom via ZUMA

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President Donald Trump has been known to boast about only hiring the best people, but in hindsight says he could’ve used some help. On Sunday, Trump complained that the FBI didn’t inform him that his own campaign chairman was under investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump downplayed the role of Paul Manafort, who has been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller on multiple counts of money laundering, fraud, and conspiracy against the United States, and said “we should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him.” 

If only there had been some way for the Trump campaign to know that Manafort, a resident of Trump Tower—who’d made his fortune as a political consultant to dictators and had largely been absent from Republican politics for two decades—was involved in some shady business. Like, say, Google.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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