White House: Manafort who? With Trump’s former campaign chairman catching heat for his Russia ties, the White House is scrambling to distance itself.

The White House can’t run away from Paul Manafort fast enough.

With headlines piling up about extensive ties between President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and pro-Russia forces, the White House is going through contortions trying to create distance between Trump and Manafort, straining credulity in the process.


The latest blow came Wednesday, as The Associated Press reported that Manafort had previously done secret work for a Russian billionaire to boost Russian President Vladimir Putin’s image and interests. The story compounded the White House’s Russia problem, which flared up on Monday when FBI Director James Comey testified that his agency has an active investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials.

The White House rolled out a new line in response to the AP report, with multiple press aides saying they “can’t comment on non-White House employees.”

And at Wednesday’s news briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer continued his efforts to downplay Manafort’s role on the campaign.

“He was hired to count delegates,” Spicer said, comparing Manafort’s role on the campaign to past roles he held on the George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole campaigns.

Even before Wednesday’s bombshell report on Manafort, the White House had been seeking to put daylight between itself and Trump’s former campaign chairman.

“Obviously, there’s been discussion of Paul Manafort, who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time,” Spicer said Monday.

That declaration left some White House allies scoffing.

“Would anyone other than Spicer say that?” one former senior campaign official mused. “I think not.”

Trump confidant Roger Stone, who himself is facing questions about connections to Russia, said Tuesday that Spicer was “delusional” for his comments downplaying Manafort’s role.

Spicer’s comment on Monday prompted an incredulous real-time reaction from one reporter in the briefing who pointed out that Manafort was campaign chairman. Spicer told the reporter to “calm down.”

On Wednesday, Spicer said he should have been “more precise” in originally describing Manafort’s role.

Spicer also falsely stated later in the Monday briefing that Manafort was brought on the campaign “sometime in June.”

Manafort in fact joined the campaign in late March 2016 and helped lead it through 18 nominating contests and the Republican National Convention, taking over many of the roles of campaign manager even before Corey Lewandowski was fired in June. Manafort left the campaign in August in the wake of reports on his business dealings with pro-Russia leaders in Ukraine.

But that was not the end of his relationship with Trump.

They continued to stay in touch through November, as Trump pursued a Midwestern electoral strategy that Manafort had advocated, and after the election as Trump began to build out his administration. And Manafort continues to own an apartment in Trump Tower in New York, according to the AP, where Trump’s wife and youngest son continue to reside.

Spicer insisted on Wednesday that it was “insane” to expect Trump to be aware of Manafort’s past business dealings.

“What else don’t we know? Where he went to school, what grades he got, who he played with in the sandbox,” Spicer said.

Former House speaker and Trump confidant Newt Gingrich said the White House was making the right move in running from Manafort.

“It makes perfect sense for them to distance themselves from somebody who apparently didn’t tell them what he was doing,” Gingrich said. “What works is to simply say that he never told them any of this, that if he told them that, then he would never have hired him and that this is Manafort’s problem.”

“I don’t see, despite the best efforts of the news media, how it becomes Trump’s problem,” Gingrich added. “All Trump has to say is, ‘None of us knew about it and when we did know about it, he was gone.’”

Just how convincing a defense that will be remains to be seen.

That challenge was underscored by a Fox News clip that resurfaced Wednesday of Gingrich himself praising Manafort for his extensive work on the campaign.

“Nobody should underestimate how much Paul Manafort did to really help get this campaign to where it is right now,” Gingrich told Sean Hannity of Fox News in August.

Critics of the administration saw nothing surprising in the latest damage-control effort.

“Whenever there’s trouble or whenever there’s a problem, it’s always somebody else’s fault,” said Rick Tyler, who worked as communications director on Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential bid.

“The credibility is shattered. But my guess is they’ll just marshal on,” Tyler said. “Sean Spicer goes out there every day, and the people who speak for the president, and they know what their marching orders are, and it’s not telling the truth. It’s telling the truth as Donald Trump perceives it to be.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the efforts to downplay Manafort’s role. But for those seeking to understand Manafort’s importance to the campaign, Trump’s own words provide a guide.

On the night Trump won the Indiana primary in May and Cruz suspended his campaign — effectively securing Trump’s spot as the GOP nominee — he thanked three staffers by name in his speech. The first one: Paul Manafort.

Shane Goldmacher contributed to this report.

