THE ONLY THING ‘PHONY’ IS TRUMP’S BLAME SHIFTING

Predictably, the president is tweet-storming.

Here are a few excerpts: “… NO COLLUSION!” and “… ‘collusion,’ which doesn’t exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics …” and “Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia,….”

Witch hunt? Phony Trump/Russia? Really?

Is it phony that Paul Manafort lied when major news organizations began reporting about his deep financial links to Russia and the Ukraine, and even when he was finally forced to resign as then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign manager? Is it phony that Manafort and his business partner, Rick Gates (also a Trump adviser), now face federal charges of tax fraud, money laundering, foreign lobbying and making false statements?

Is it phony that former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when he told investigators earlier this year about the timing of his 2016 contacts with a Russian professor who had close ties to the Russian government and who offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands” of emails?

Let’s give these new federal indictments and a guilty plea against three former Trump officials some context. Is it phony that Trump former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination? That Roger Stone, a Trump adviser and GOP operative, happened to receive a “tip” about Clinton’s emails being released? That Felix Sater, another Trump business associate, pleads guilty to a stock fraud scheme associated with the Russian mafia? That Trump said of Manafort after the FBI in July raided Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Va.: “I’ve always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man.”?

Trump has said he continued to talk with Manafort long after his resignation. And Manafort’s business (and indictment) partner — Gates — continued to work in the Trump campaign and later went on to have a central role in Trump’s inaugural committee, as well as a lobbying group formed to advance the president’s agenda. Gates was forced out of the lobbying group in April amid questions about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

And what of Papadopoulos, who was named by Trump in March 2016 as a foreign policy adviser to the campaign? He is a 30-year-old self-described oil, gas and policy consultant who was first charged under seal in July and ultimately pleaded guilty in October to charges of lying to federal agents investigating Russian interference in the presidential election about his campaign contacts with Russia.

According to court papers unsealed Monday, those contacts included an unnamed overseas professor whom Papadopoulos met in Italy. Papadopoulos told the FBI his contacts occurred before he became an adviser to Trump’s campaign. In fact, Papadopoulos’ emails began days after he was named to Trump’s campaign team and continued for months. He even offered to set up a meeting directly between Trump and Putin.

In April 2016, the professor told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, including thousands of Clinton’s emails. That particular conversation took place two months before the Democratic National Committee revealed it had been hacked. It was about a month after John Podesta’s email account was targeted. Podesta’s emails were released by WikiLeaks in October.

The court papers also say several senior campaign officials knew about some of Papadopoulos’ interactions with the Russians. That fact alone raises more questions about the meeting later in June at Trump Tower, where Trump’s oldest son and senior advisers — including Manafort — met with Russians who also were promising dirt on Clinton.

Trump and his people would have us think Manafort was an unknown who played a “very limited role for a very limited amount of time,” in the words of former White House spokesman Sean Spicer. (You’ll recall that he also said Flynn was merely a campaign “volunteer.”)

Current White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Manafort and Gates mostly handled the delegate process and were let go. And she called Papadopoulos “a volunteer member of an advisory council that literally met one time.”

Never mind that Trump had publicly singled Papadopoulos out as the foreign policy adviser pivotal to his campaign, and never mind those pesky photos of Papadopoulos in meetings with Trump.

Never mind that Trump and Manafort have known each other for two or three decades, depending on whose version of “I introduced them” you believe. Trump adviser Roger Stone claims to have introduced them at the 1988 Republican national convention in New Orleans. The late Roy Cohn, Trump’s former lawyer, claimed he put them together in the 1980s.

Never mind that in 2006 Manafort bought a $3.7 million apartment in Trump Tower in Manhattan. In fact, a passing meeting in the Trump Tower elevator between Manafort and Trump has been said to be the genesis of Manafort’s eventual appearance on the campaign.

What is phony here is our president’s shameless embrace of distraction and blame shifting, along with the GOP’s acceptance of a leader who is clearly damaged goods.

Even if you come away with nothing else from these very early developments in the Russia/Trump probe, you have to see our president guilty of at least one pivotally important thing: The sloppiest employee vetting and management in modern history.