Spicer Contradicts Trump on Manafort Campaign Role

Sean Spicer—the bumbling former press secretary—has written a new book which appears to undermine President Trump’s claim that Paul Manafort only played a minor part in his winning campaign in 2016. Manafort—currently in jail awaiting trial on charges of money laundering, tax fraud, failure to register as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice—was previously said by Trump to have been with the campaign for “a very short period of time.” Spicer’s account is quite different. “There was no semblance of a campaign structure, just a few, distraught, overworked people constantly barking into their phones,” he wrote. “Paul immediately set up and staffed the political and communications operations necessary to take on the Clinton machine. The Manafort message was clear: Trump will be our nominee and our next president, and anyone who didn’t want to work to that end could spend the next four years in political Siberia. (No Russia pun intended.)” Elsewhere in the book, Spicer describes Trump as “a unicorn, riding a unicorn over a rainbow” for reasons which are not yet clear.