With the proliferation of Trump campaign claims, leaks, and alleged reporting, it might have been difficult to find a new one to digest, but Paul Manafort's upcoming book just might have a doozy.
Manafort, who was Trump's campaign chairman in the summer of 2016, is alleging former attorney for then-candidate Donald Trump Michael Cohen, who was convicted for tax evasion and campaign-finance violations and since disbarred, was "spying on the campaign" during the 2016 presidential election, according to Vox.
The new allegation comes in Manafort's upcoming book "Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, But Not Silenced," which is set to be released Tuesday, Aug. 16.
Manafort's book, reviewed by Vox, alleges Cohen made himself the administrator of the campaign server, giving himself access to all campaign staffer emails.
"He had access to everybody's communications," Manafort wrote, Vox reported Saturday. "He had knowledge and he would be sitting in his office, gaining knowledge by virtue of spying on the campaign."
Cohen did not deny his access to the campaign server, but did deny the purpose, according to Vox.
"Not surprisingly, Manafort is distorting the truth," Cohen told Vox in a statement. "I requested administrative access to only Corey Lewandowski's campaign email address after he was terminated. The purpose was to prove to Trump that it was Corey who was leaking negative information on Jared [Kusher] and Ivanka [Trump] to the press. The information was located and turned over to Donald."
Lewandowski, the 2016 Trump campaign under chairman Manafort, would ultimately be fired and escorted out of Trump Tower by security, The Washington Post reported.
Cohen, after being sentenced to three years in federal prison and a $50,000 fine, had broken from Trump and become an outspoken critic in liberal media. He plead guilty to eight counts of fraud and campaign finance violations in 2018.
Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 and took full control after Lewandowski's ouster.
Manafort would ultimately be removed as Trump campaign chairman late in the summer of 2016 as investigations into alleged Trump campaign ties to Russia surfaced. Special counsel Robert Mueller's multi-year and mega million dollar investigation ultimately found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Trump had called it a "complete and total exoneration."
Manafort's book also alleged Mueller "was suffering through an advancing stage of dementia" and proved incapable of running the massive investigate that cost millions and revealed nothing more than anti-Trump fodder for liberal media.
Trump famously called it all "a cloud" over his presidency.
Manafort was among Trump's full presidential pardons in December 2020 before he left the White House.
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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