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Trump claimed that the Manafort conviction had nothing to do with him while denying the reality that Manafort was in charge of his presidential campaign at a critical point.

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Trump said as he landed in West Virginia, “A lot of different people over the years. I feel sad about that. It doesn’t involve me, but I still feel it’s a sad thing that happened. It has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started with Russia collusion this has absolutely nothing to do. This is a disgrace. This has nothing to do with what they set out looking for Russians involved in our campaign. There were none. I feel very bad for Paul Manafort. He walked for Bob Dole. He worked for Ronald Reagan. He worked for me. Many people. And this is the way it ends up. It was not the original mission, believe me. It was something very much so it had nothing to do with Russian collusion. They continue the witch hunt. Thank you very much.”

Trump is in full flight mode

This had nothing to do with Trump except for the part where he let a guy run his campaign who was committing crimes while working for him and changed the Republican platform to more pro-Russia policy on Ukraine. Other than the fact that guy ran his presidential campaign for a time, the case had absolutely nothing to do with Trump.

Trump did not have a single word to say about Michael Cohen, which feeds the long-held belief that the White House is more worried about what Cohen knows than Manafort, but if Paul Manafort was looking for a sign that a presidential pardon could be coming, he is surely disappointed, because Trump pulled one of his favorite moves by throwing Manafort under the bus and running as far away as possible from the crisis.

Paul Manafort conviction has destroyed Trump’s claims of a witch hunt once and for all.

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