President Trump spoke with reporters as he was leaving the White House to visit tornado-ravaged Alabama Friday, weighing in on the Paul Manafort sentence and then quickly pivoting into another "no collusion" rant.
"I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. I think it's been a very, very tough time for him. But if you notice, both his lawyer – a highly respected man – and a highly respected judge said there was no collusion with Russia. This had nothing to do with collusion. There was no collusion. It's a collusion hoax. It's a collusion witch hoax. I don't collude with Russia. I just want to tell you his lawyer went out of his way, actually, to make a statement last night. No collusion with Russia. There was absolutely none. The judge, I mean, for whatever reason – I was very honored by it – also made the statement that this had nothing to do with collusion with Russia. So, keep it going. Let's keep the hoax going. Just a hoax. Senator Burr said there's no collusion. You look at Devin Nunes and the House Intelligence Commission. Committee. They said there's no collusion. And guess what? There is none."
Trump's remarks are wrong with regard to what Manafort's attorney and Judge Ellis said about collusion.
Following Manafort’s sentencing, defense attorney Kevin Downing spoke to reporters outside the courthouse where he asserted that Ellis’ ruling showed “there is absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved in any collusion with any government official from Russia,” which appeared to be a more narrow denial than his team has offered in the past.
President Trump on Friday dramatically misrepresented comments made by the judge who presided over the sentencing of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
... The case was prosecuted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office but was unrelated to his core mission of investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
During Thursday’s proceedings in a courtroom in Alexandria, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III noted the distinction, saying that Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election.”
In a tweet and later when talking to reporters, Trump incorrectly suggested that Ellis’s comments had cleared his campaign of wrongdoing.
The president also insists he has not considered a pardon for Manafort.
Trump on Friday told reporters that he hadn’t discussed pardoning Manafort, who he’s consistently framed as a victim of a ruthless special counsel even while distancing himself at times from his former campaign chairman.
“I don't even discuss it. The only one discussing it is you,” he said.
But when Trump took to Twitter to accuse his former personal lawyer of lying to Congress, he claimed that he and Michael Cohen personally did speak about the possibility of a pardon.
Cohen fired back:
According to CNN, the president is obsessed with Cohen and what he told Congress.
The President's aides and allies say he has raised Cohen constantly over the past week, inserting questions and complaints about him into briefings and meetings on otherwise unrelated matters.
Sources say Trump has become so consumed by Cohen and the fallout from his testimony that he brings him up minutes after national security briefings, during calls with lawmakers and while strategizing with aides about administration priorities.
(...)
Trump has done little to veil his lingering fixation with Cohen, who testified before a House panel that Trump had knowledge of Cohen's hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, that he had a conversation with Roger Stone about WikiLeaks, and that he is generally a racist fraudster.
"I had a bad lawyer," Trump lamented on Friday as he departed the White House for a tour of tornado destruction in the South. "That happens."
Cohen served as Trump's attorney for more than a decade, acting as a fierce protector of the real estate mogul's brand and reputation. He remained loyal through the 2016 presidential campaign but broke dramatically with the President last year as the allegations involving Daniels emerged.
But instead of ignoring or rising above the claims, he's treated Cohen as a running punching bag, both in public and private.
(...)
Despite once claiming he had little time for television, Trump allowed that he'd watched coverage of Cohen, who claimed under oath to have never sought a pardon from the President. Trump brought up Cohen after being asked about pardoning his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
"I know that in watching and seeing you folks at night, that Michael Cohen lied about the pardon," he told reporters on the South Lawn. "It's a stone-cold lie. And he's lied about a lot of things. But when he lied about the pardon, that was really a lie."
"He knew all about pardons," Trump went on. "His lawyers said that they went to my lawyers and asked for pardons. And I can go a step above that, but I won't go do it now."
Trump says he feels 'very badly' for Manafort after his sentencing (Politico)
Trump misrepresents judge in Manafort trial as he claims ‘no collusion’ with Russia (WaPo)