After earlier distancing himself from his onetime campa🔜ign chief, President Donald 🍎Trump defended Paul Manafort by claiming Manafort is being treated worse by federal prosecutors than Al Capone.
“Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and ‘Public Enemy Number One,’ or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement – although convicted of nothing?,” Trump wrote on Twitter — misspelling Alphonse, Capone’s first name.
“Where is the Russian Collusion?,” .
The second day of Manafort’s federal trial began Wednesday in Virginia.
Prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller contend 𓂃Manafort evaded paying taxes on millions of dollars in income by using shell banks to funnel money into the United States from Ukraine, where he was working for a pol🤡itical party.
The alleged bank and wire fraud happened before Ma💞nafort went to work for the♕ Trump campaign for five months in 2016.
In an , Trump said Manafort had worked for other US officials but “He worked for me a very short time.”
Manafort, who had been under house arrest, was ordered jailed in June over allegations of witness tampering.
He has been held in solitary confinement because officials say they can’t guarantee his safety.
Capone, known as “Scarface,” was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.