CNN’s Toobin: ‘Why Was Paul Manafort Involved in This Campaign?’

As the seismic news about Paul Manafort’s indictment broke this morning, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin revisited a pertinent question: “Why was Paul Manafort involved in this campaign?”

“Who is he? Why is he involved?” Toobin asked. “What this indictment lays out is that he was making millions of dollars from the Russia-backed party in the Ukraine. I mean, he is someone who was doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding in Ukraine. He then becomes the campaign chairman for Donald Trump. Who’s he working for? What side is he on?”

He added that this is “consistent with a campaign that was highly sympathetic to Russia.”

Toobin’s musings come as CNN’s Sarah Murray reports that a source close to the White House reacted to news of the indictment by claiming Manafort and his partner in (alleged) crime Rick Gates were “bad guys when they started” on the Trump campaign, and “bad guys when they left”:

Source close to WH tells @saramurray “These guys were bad guys when they started, they were bad guys when they left,”not related to campaign

— Noah Gray (@NoahGrayCNN) October 30, 2017

Watch above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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