A clearly anxious Donald Trump followed up his stunning early morning demand for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to put an immediate end to the Mueller investigation with a somehow more outrageous tweet — a comparison of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort to none other than notorious Prohibition-era mobster Al Capone.
Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and “Public Enemy Number One,” or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement – although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018
A big deal was made of the authorities’ decision to place Paul Manafort’s “solitary confinement” by right-wingers protesting cruel treatment and by prison reformists who protest the practice, which has been roundly criticized by UN torture experts.
But it was soon discovered that “solitary confinement” for Manafort meant something very different than it does for regular prisoners.
The Guardian reports that “According to Mueller’s team, Manafort had nearly all-day access, from 8.30am to 10pm, to a separate workroom, to meet with his legal team. He had a personal telephone. He had his own bathroom and shower facility. He had a personal laptop. He was caught during a monitored phone call saying he was being treated like a ‘VIP.'”
Far from being mistreated in any way, Manafort is shamefully being pampered like a profligate princeling rather than a man with decades of criminal and unethical actions under his belt.
For the record, Manafort is being held in prison without conviction because he was busted attempting to tamper with the witnesses in his case, which is something that Al Capone would certainly be willing to do as well.
It is very curious that the President — who almost certainly has never “looked back at history” — seems to think that comparing his obviously guilty former campaign manager to an obviously guilty criminal mastermind is a sound defense strategy, but by all means, please continue digging the hole even deeper.
