The White House has been distancing itself from Paul Manafort, and for good reason. On the one hand, this is absurd — Manafort was the campaign manager and had a huge role in putting Trump over the top for the nomination. On the other hand, there is no suggestion of any of the Russian stuff touching the core political team that got Trump elected president — Conway, Bannon, Bossie, et al. If the Manafort revelations get worse, and there is no reason to believe they will get any better, Trump’s inoculating argument will obviously be that he fired him and barely knew the guy.