After being one of the initial targets of "deep state" efforts to "get Donald Trump," former Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Newsmax calls on "the good ones" at the FBI to stand up against the corruption or be labeled as "complicit" in it.
"If the agents are seeing what's going on and they're being quiet, then they're guilty by complicity," Manafort told Wednesday's "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "They have to rise up. They have to be whistleblowers. They have to, you know, expose the corruption in their ranks, or they're part of the corruption."
Manafort's book "Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced" was released Tuesday, and he told host Rob Schmitt it tells "the ugly story" of "deep state" efforts under fired FBI Director Jim Comey to get Trump, the political outsider.
"And right now, Christopher Wray and the leadership of the FBI is as committed to justice as Jim Comey was and his regime — which is not very much," Manafort continued. "It's very important that FBI agents — because there are good ones — they not feel cowered and know that there are supporters on the outside, if they will stand up."
Manafort, who was pardoned by Trump for his conviction for tax and bank fraud, said it is incumbent on Republicans to retake congressional majorities to give constitutional balance to partisan attacks on Trump and his associates.
"It's also important for Republicans to take over the Congress and to make sure that the members of the FBI understand that they will be rewarded for exposing the corruption, not punished," Manafort said.
Manafort's book details his being investigated, held in solitary confinement, tried and convicted.
"I always lived by the law books, what the law books taught me, which was that the system was fair, the scales of the justice were balanced and everybody was treated the same regardless of any issue. I was wrong," he continued. "The deep state was very frightened of Donald Trump, and they did everything they could to try and destroy him."
Manafort compared himself to Trump-backer Roger Stone and former White House trade adviser Pete Navarro in being mere "means" to the end of getting at Trump.
"People like myself and Roger were means to that end, where they came after us to try and get us to capitulate and give them Donald Trump, which neither of us would do, because it wasn't true," Manafort said.
He also described the "ugly story" in his new book.
"I go through the details of why the deep state didn't like Trump, what they were trying to do to Trump, how they were using the Justice Department and the law enforcement and national security agencies to go after Trump and why I was targeted for that purpose," Manafort said. "I go into the details, and it's an ugly story.
"It's one that, you know, I talked about Americans have to be careful of, because even though I was a target, Roger was a target, Navarro was a target, Trump is a target — they're really going after the American people and trying to force them into either silently letting them do what they want with power or joining their cause.
"It's something we can't let happen."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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