President Donald Trump likened the ongoing prosecution of Paul Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller to the federal case against gangster Al Capone, in an interview with Fox New’s Sean Hannity.
“Paul Manafort, who clearly is a nice man. You look at what is going on with him. It’s like Al Capone. On a case that I guess is very old. It’s just a sad thing. It’s a very sad thing for our country,” Trump said after a long riff targeting Mueller’s investigation. Trump railed against the investigation throughout the interview which directly followed his joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Trump repeatedly slammed the “13 angry democrats” in reference to investigators on Mueller’s team. Manafort is currently being prosecuted by Mueller’s team for a litany of alleged financial crimes and failure to register as the agent of a foreign power. The alleged crimes he is being prosecuted for largely pre-date any of his work on the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump is apparently referencing the federal government’s pursuit of tax charges against Al Capone in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s when they were unable to prosecute him for his gangster enterprise.