With the FBI accused of pushing the Clinton campaign, which as recently as a week ago was seen as invincible as it stormed toward the November 8 presidential election, over the proverbial cliff, it was perhaps inevitable that in order to preserve the appearance of impartiality the Bureau would proceed with a probe of Trump’s own campaign. And, according to NBC which cited law enforcement and intelligence sources, it has done so by focusing on Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and specifically his foreign business connections.
The news of the inquiry, which has not blossomed into a full-blown criminal investigation, emerges just days after FBI Director James Comey’s disclosure that his agency is examining a new batch of emails connected to an aide to Hillary Clinton. It also comes a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Comey’s revelation and asserted that Comey possesses “explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”
As a reminder, Manafort, who resigned as Donald Trump’s campaign manager in August, was previously an international political consultant. He became a liability for the Trump campaign amid reports of his involvement with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. One damaging New York Times story earlier this year alleged the party had earmarked more than $12 million in under-the-table cash payments, raising questions about whether Manafort had run afoul of U.S. lobbying laws that would he require he register as “foreign agent” with the Justice Department.
Manafort’s name in an alleged payment ledger
What received far less focus at the time of Manafort resignation, is that as part of the probe, the FBI was also looking into the PR firm of John Podesta’s brother, the Podesta Group founded by prominent democrat Tony Podesta.
But back to Manafort, and the NBC story, which in retrospect is merely a regurgitation of a CNN report from August 19, which reported the exact same thing over two months ago: the FBI did not comment. Manafort told NBC News “none of it is true … There’s no investigation going on by the FBI that I’m aware of.” He said he had never had ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, or had dealings with Putin and his government. He said any suggestion of such ties was “Democratic propaganda.”
“This is all political propaganda, meant to deflect,” he said.
Furthermore, it appears that the latest news is actually a step down from the origianl CNN report: sources told NBC that the FBI review is not a full-blown criminal investigation, but rather an initial inquiry.
ht. shazzam
It never was news. It was gossip
The lies from the Left have officially hit critical mass and the laws of the physical universe require the wall of lies suffer total and irreversible collapse. It quite simply cannot sustain itself under the weight. Ironically, the Left calculated that Americans would surrender under the Left’s onslaught of lies, misinformation, chaos, BLM, Occupy, Killery, obama, Huma, etc., but just the opposite was true. The Left could not keep their lies straight; they goofed up, they had a bad ground game. They even lied to each other.
Trump should sue them for defamation. The shameless lying about political rivals in an effort to destroy them needs to stop.
No ties between Trump and Russia.
No ties between Assange and Russia.
But Hillary and Podesta made sure
Russia could buy 20% of America’s Uranium.
(paraphrasing a tweet of Assange)