Apparently, Fox News host Harris Faulkner thinks that running for president from the business/entertainment world is all the excuse Donald Trump needs for having hired crooked creep Paul Manafort as campaign manager.
On Outnumbered today, Faulkner did her best to spin the fact that Trump’s former campaign manager went on trial today for tax evasion and bank fraud. The New York Times explains the very serious charges:
Prosecutors claim that beginning in 2006, Mr. Manafort hid millions of dollars in income that he received from the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian oligarchs to promote a pro-Russian leader, Viktor Yanukovych. When Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia after a popular uprising in 2014, prosecutors say, the spigot of funds from Ukraine dried up. They charge that Mr. Manafort then resorted to bank fraud to maintain his lifestyle.
[…]
The most serious charges against Mr. Manafort could carry sentences of up to 30 years each. He also faces charges of money laundering, violating a federal lobbying disclosure law and obstruction of justice.
How on earth would a guy like this wind up running Donald Trump’s presidential campaign? Well, if you’re Trumper Faulkner, it’s all part of what makes Trump great.
Media Matters caught Faulkner’s lack of concern for Trump’s competence in hiring, despite claiming to hire “the best people.” As Democrat Jessica Tarlov pointed out, Manafort’s shadiness was nothing new:
FAULKNER: But I think the point I hear you making and I've heard others make, and it's an interesting point, is that in the throes of a campaign, is this what happens when everybody doesn't get that vetting? And you know it's tough because you had someone who was non-traditionally politician, right? And that's what people love about Donald Trump and loved about him as the candidate. So I don't think we should be too shocked with regard to the vetting that didn't happen and a lot of what's out there about Paul Manafort was not clandestine. But it is part of that process.
Watch Faulkner forgive what she’d surely condemn if Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager was in the same hot water as Manafort below, from the July 31, 2018 Outnumbered, via Media Matters.
