President Donald Trump on Thursday said the FBI’s raid on the home of his former campaign chair Paul Manafort was “pretty tough” and sent “a very, very strong signal.”
“I thought it was a very, very strong signal or whatever,” Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf club where he is on a “working vacation.”
Trump said he has not spoken to Manafort, who used to run his campaign, “in a long time,” and claimed Manafort was part of the campaign “for a very short period of time, relatively short period of time.”
“I’ve always known him to be a good man. I thought it was a very, you know — they do that very seldom, so I was surprised to see it,” Trump said. “I was very, very surprised to see it. We haven’t really been involved.”
The FBI raided Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, late last month as part of the ongoing federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion.
Fox News on Thursday reported that Trump’s attorney John Dowd emailed “a Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote about the Manafort raid” to call it “gross abuse of the judicial process,” though two WSJ reporters who wrote about the raid told TPM they had not heard from Dowd.
Asked whether he has spoken to FBI Director Christopher Wray about the raid, Trump said, “No, I have not. I have not.”
He said he “always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man.”
“He’s like a lot of other people, probably makes consultant fees from all over the place, who knows, I don’t know,” Trump said.
He said reporters would “have to ask” the FBI “whether or not it was appropriate” to raid Manafort’s home.
“But I thought that was a very — that was pretty tough stuff,” Trump said. “To wake him up, perhaps his family was there, I think that’s pretty tough stuff.”
“Fire and fury, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
I hardly know the guy. But he’s a good guy. Who I really don’t know. A good guy I haven’t seen for a really long time. He makes a lot of deals, but I wouldn’t know about them.
If he thought that was a surprise…
He’s really gonna be surprised when they drag him and Jared away with bags over their heads.
I really think that, as Paul manafort was speaking with the FBI the day before this raid that manafort may actually be cooperating but requested that the FBI make it appear as though he isn’t for his own safety regarding Putin.
Trump continued, “Boy, with the resources the Feds are throwing into this, I bet there’s going to be lots of arrests and prosecutions in the next few weeks. I better have my TiVo extend my daily recording of Fox & Friends so I don’t miss any of the drama. On my working vacation, naturally.”