Hours after FBI raided Paul Manafort’s home, Donald Trump began ranting about the FBI on Twitter
Thanks to a new bombshell report, we know that the FBI raided the home of former Donald Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort before dawn on July 26th. And thanks to Donald Trump’s own Twitter feed, we know that Trump learned about the raid hours later and then began publicly taking out his frustrations on then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
The news surfaced this afternoon from the Washington Post, which reported that the FBI raided Manafort’s home and seized evidence (link). A check of Donald Trump’s tweets from that timeframe reveals that he was far from happy about the matter, and that he may not have learned about it as quickly as one might have expected.
At 9:48am eastern time, which would have been perhaps four to six hours after the “pre-dawn” raid of Manafort’s home, Donald Trump posted this angry Twitter rant: “Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!” (link). At the time there was little context for why Trump was suddenly making misleading accusations against McCabe. The time of day also seemed odd, as Trump’s angry morning rants typically take place at roughly around 7:30am.
Knowing what we know now, it appears Donald Trump learned about the raid of Paul Manafort’s home sometime in the 9:00am hour and then began publicly attacking the acting FBI Director in response. This means Trump probably didn’t know about the raid at the time it was taking place, nor was he told immediately thereafter, or he’d have more likely begun ranting about it first thing in the morning. This in turn suggests that Trump may have learned about the raid not from law enforcement officials, but from Manafort’s camp instead.
