Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign. I’ll tell you, I feel a little badly about it. They went back 12 years to get things that he did 12 years ago?
“You know, Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time…. He worked for me, what, for 49 days or something? A very short period of time.”
Michael Cohen was a PR person who did small legal work, very small legal work. And what he did was very sad, when you look. By the way, he was in trouble not for what he did for me; he was in trouble for what he did for himself. You do know that? Having to do with loans, mortgages, taxicabs and various other things, if you read the paper. He wasn’t in trouble for what he did for me; he was in trouble for what he did for other people. He represented me very little. It’s a very low level. And what he was is also a public relations person. And now if he wants to try and get a little bit lighter sentence for what he did . . . Totally uninvolved. I wasn’t involved and he had other clients, No. 1. And No. 2, he was a contractor to a large extent. But Michael Cohen, if you take a look at what he did, this had to do with loans, and I guess the taxi industry is something that I have nothing to do with, he did this on his own time.
In conversations with allies, the president has begun to distance himself from Prince Mohammed, 33, saying he barely knows him. And he has played down the relationship that Mr. Kushner has cultivated with the Saudi heir.
Given all we've seen over the last week, the scrambling for a cover story, the refusal to accept the obvious, hiding intelligence, why are we assuming that President Trump or members of his inner circle didn't have some advance knowledge of Khashoggi's fate?
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 19, 2018