Donald Trump says Paul Manafort's conviction 'DOESN'T INVOLVE' Trump campaign or Russia
DONALD Trump has distanced himself from his former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, who was found guilty on eight out of a total of 18 bank and tax fraud charges on Tuesday.
Manafort sentence nothing to do with Trump says former aide
The US President, who was on his way to a rally in West Virginia for candidate Patrick Morrisey, said he "feels sad" for Mr Manafort, who he described as a "good man".
He told reporters: "He was with Ronald Reagan, he was with a lot of different people over the years, and I feel very sad about that.
"It doesn’t involve me, but I still feel it’s a very sad thing that happened."
The American firebrand also stated more than once during the brief interview that Mr Manafort's case "has nothing to do with Russian collusion".
He called the conviction a "witch hunt" and a "disgrace".
Mr Manafort, 69, was convicted on Tuesday of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to report a foreign bank account.
However, he avoided conviction on some charges as the jury could not reach a consensus.
The former campaign chief had been charged with bank fraud, tax fraud, failure to report foreign bank accounts and also conspiracy.
It emerged that his fraud activity took place when he was chairing the Trump election campaign.
If convicted on all charges, Manafort faced up to 305 years in prison.
Kevin Downing, Mr Manafort’s lawyer, said that his client was “evaluating all of his options”.
Mr Downing added that Mr Manafort was “disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts”.
Donald Trump says he feels 'sad' for Paul Manafort
President Trump's ex-campaign chief's charges were brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 president election and potential obstruction of justice.
He is the fourth former Trump aide to be convicted of crimes investigated by Mr Mueller, and his conviction came only minutes after Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer, pleaded guilty to charges in a different investigation, which was also brought by the Mr Mueller.
Mr Cohen pleaded guilty in New York and claimed he and President Trump arranged the payment of hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model in order to influence the election.