President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani almost immediately walked back a statement Friday in which he claimed former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort would “tell the truth” about the president to federal prosecutors, with whom he’s agreed to cooperate as part of a plea agreement.
“Once again, an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the campaign. The reason: the president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth,” Giuliani said shortly after Manafort appeared in a Washington courtroom Friday to announce the plea deal.
But minutes later, Giuliani issued a revised version of his original statement that did not contain any references to Manafort. The former New York City mayor did not immediately return a request for comment about the change.
Friday’s plea agreement between Manafort, who spent five months at the helm of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and federal prosecutors includes a 10-year cap on prison time in the former lobbyist’s sentence and allows him to serve time from two cases concurrently. The deal dismisses 10 charges that jurors in Manafort’s trial last month were unable to reach a consensus on in exchange for his “successful cooperation” with special counsel Robert Mueller.
[Opinion: Don’t pardon Paul Manafort]
Despite Giuliani’s statement, it was unclear Friday if the cooperation agreement between Manafort and Mueller had anything to do with the president or if he was being asked to provide information related to individuals who could face indictments apart from the probe into Russian election meddling.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders echoed Giuliani, telling reporters in a statement that Manafort’s guilty plea “had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign.”
Manafort was originally due to face a second trial in Washington this month over multiple charges of financial fraud and witness tampering. The plea deal will allow the longtime lobbyist, who has been held in jail since he was convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud in August, to avoid the second trial.
Trump told reporters following Manafort’s first trial that he felt “very badly” for his former camapign chairman.
“I must tell you, he was a great man, he was with Ronald Reagan and many people over the years, and I feel very sad about that. It doesn’t involve me, but I still feel it is a very sad thing that happened,” the president said at the time.
