Straight Talk

Donald Trump responds to charges laid against former campaign manager Paul Manafort

by Charlie Smith on October 30th, 2017 at 8:25 AM
    1 of 1 2 of 1

      The president of the United States has used Twitter to downplay news of charges against one of his former campaign managers.

      Donald Trump triumphantly declared that the allegations against Manafort are unrelated to his presidential campaign.

      Paul Manafort has been charged with 12 counts in connection with his business dealings in Ukraine in 2015.

      One of Manafort's associates, Rick Gates, has also been charged.

      The case concerns an alleged scheme to launder $18 million that they received from a pro-Russia party headed by former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych.

      Manafort has also been accused of lobbying illegally on behalf of this party in the United States without disclosing these activities.

      The charges were filed by special counsel Robert Mueller and basically amount to an allegation of conspiracy against the United States.

      In the meantime, Mueller's office has revealed that a Trump campaign official pleaded guilty earlier this month. 

      George Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old former foreign-policy adviser to Trump's team, admitted to lying to the FBI in its investigation of any Russian connection to the Trump campaign. (You can see his photo below.)

      Papadopoulos has since acknowledged being involved in arranging meetings with Russians who had possession of Hillary Clinton's emails.

      These political bombshells have understandably attracted a great deal of attention over Twitter.

      Comments