Don tirade after aides are nailed

PRESIDENT TRUMP slammed the media Tuesday and sought to distance himself from former campaign staffers who were indicted this week.

In his first tweets since his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Manafort business associate Rick Gates were hit with a dozen charges stemming back more than a decade, Trump went on the offensive.

“The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts lawyer said, there was ‘no collusion’ and events mentioned took place long before he came to the campaign,” the President wrote.

Manafort and Gates were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, who’s tasked with investigating Russia’s influence on the presidential election and possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

At the same time, the Justice Department announced campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russian officials.

“Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

The President’s social media meltdown led to a wide variety of responses from critics and colleagues .

“Keep up the tweeting. Seriously, keep it up,” former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara wrote in response. Trump fired Bharara in March after he refused to resign.

Former campaign aide Michael Caputo backed his old boss, dismissing Papadopoulos as “the coffee boy.”

Trump also tweeted about news he considered “earth shattering” — that Tony Podesta, the brother of former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, stepped down from his lobbying firm after it was linked to the Manafort indictment.

“Not bad enough that I was the victim of a massive cyber crime directed by the Russian President, now I’m the victim of a big lie campaign by the American President,” John Podesta responded Tuesday. Podesta’s emails were stolen by suspected Kremlin-backed hackers and released by WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign.