In his first television appearance since being pardoned by then-President Donald Trump, Paul Manafort ran to good friend Sean Hannity to complain about what happened to him.
The Fox News host on Wednesday introduced the former Trump campaign chairman, who was convicted in 2018 of lying to federal investigators about his role in Russian election interference in 2016, by launching into what sounded like a greatest hits spiel from the early Trump years. Hannity began with special counsel Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt” and the “deep state’s effort to destroy” Trump and his allies.
“Mueller and his team wanted Manafort to die in jail,” an angry Hannity began, “and they tried hard, and they also put him in solitary confinement for nearly a year. Why? To break him.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Manafort was jailed in June 2018 after his bail was revoked for violating conditions of his house arrest. He remained incarcerated until May 2020, when he was released to home confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The prisoners were never an issue with me. The special prosecutor was. They are the ones who put me into view of harm’s way. Solitary is a terrible thing,” Manafort griped.
“They said it was to protect me. I never believed that for a minute. It didn’t protect me. What it did was it put me into a situation [where] I’m in an 8-by-10 room with no windows, with no access to people, no access to outside, and limited ability to communicate with my lawyers.”
Manafort continued, noting that he discusses his imprisonment in his forthcoming book, Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced.
“I talk about how, you know, it’s inhumane what they call solitary confinement. Then, they tried to get me to go to Rikers Island and be in solitary, which fortunately—due to the Department of Justice—didn’t happen because there was an issue of safety for me in that context there.”
It’s no surprise that the convicted felon found a sympathetic ally in the Fox News host. After all, the two communicated frequently in 2017 and 2018, with Manafort claiming—and Hannity agreeing—that he was being set up by corrupt, anti-Trump prosecutors in the Justice Department. Hannity’s “incredible reporting” on the Russia probe, the former Trump campaign chairman wrote, warranted a Pulitzer. And after Roger Stone appeared as a guest on his Fox News show one night, Hannity texted Manafort, “We r all on the same team.”
Memos from the Russia investigation also show that Manafort said he used Hannity as a backchannel to Trump while under investigation for financial crimes. That tight relationship came up Wednesday.
“They didn’t understand that there was no way I was going to lie,” Manafort said of prosecutors in Mueller’s office. “There was no way that they could force me into giving up the president, you know, and I never felt uncomfortable talking to them because I knew that as long as I told the truth, I had nothing to fear. But I was wrong.”
