3. Sure, Manafort is a criminal, but-like-way before he was Trump's campaign manager
This one in particular seems like a very poor defense, and one that has the potential to backfire spectacularly.
Either
i) the Trump campaign knew about his foreign dealings (likely) and just didn't give a damn, or
ii) they were entirely ignorant - which would show a shocking callousness in vetting high-level employees.
Remember that Ivanka and Jared Kurshner pushed hard for Trump to hire Manafort to replace the combative Cory Lewandowski.
Imagine for a second that this scenario played out at a fortune 500 company; A top level executive was indicted for multiple felonies with a potential sentence of life. That company's defense would never, ever be: w
ell we kinda knew about this but it was before we hired him so no problem for us! Hell no! They could flirt with #2 (
we didn't know!) but would put out press blurbs about how they were implementing a top-down review of hiring practices to ensure no additional person - past or present - could be in a similar position.
...but Trump's response thus far has been firmly #1.
Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????
DJT's focus on HRC is also wearing thin. Why aren't HRC and the Dems the focus? Because you are sitting in the WH, and the breadcrumbs from Russia have all led to people from within the campaign (Manafort, Flynn, Kushner, DJT himself...)