Posted on 05/05/2018 5:13:50 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Special counsel Robert Mueller is used to getting kid-glove treatment. That changed Friday in a federal courtroom in Virginia, where Judge T.S. Ellis directed a blunt challenge to the Mueller team prosecuting former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on charges of tax and bank fraud, some of which date back to 2005.
“I don’t see what relation this indictment has with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate. You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” Judge Ellis told Michael Dreeben, who was representing Mr. Mueller in court. “What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”
Judge Ellis won’t win a diplomacy-in-judging prize, but his sharp words expose a central problem with the evolution of the Mueller probe. Though he was appointed to investigate collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, Mr. Mueller’s indictments thus far have concerned other matters—lying to the FBI, or in Mr. Manafort’s case actions relating to his business with Ukraine.
Mr. Manafort’s team wants Judge Ellis to throw out the charges on grounds they exceed Mr. Mueller’s original mandate. And the judge’s questions leave the Mueller team in a difficult position. Essentially Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors now have to argue that even if they violated the Justice Department’s rules, it shouldn’t matter.
Mr. Dreeben of Team Mueller responded that the indictment doesn’t exceed the special counsel’s mandate, but the judge wants to see specifically the full and unredacted August 2, 2017 memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein saying what Mr. Mueller could pursue. The judge put it this way: “What we don’t want in this country, we don’t want anyone with unfettered power.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Rod Rosenstein will not be extorted by any judge!
This Judge is a Reagan appointee :)
“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud, What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”
AMEN!....The truth.....finally.
His CV is remarkable.
I want Mueller investigated, when found to be guilty publicly shamed, and he should receive the death penalty for the coup.
It will be curious what mandate does exist, and how Sessions will explain this to the Senate later. The whole thing is collapsing in a fairly quick manner. I’d say Mueller has at best 30 days left.
Ellis for AG!
It isn’t Session’s explanation to make. It is Rosenstein’s.
Judge Ellis may have just saved our country!
Unless he names all of the co-conspirators, then he can plea out. 8>)
I would have concluded that statement by calmly laying my side-by-side double barrel shotgun front and center on my bench.
I don’t know where you got that picture, but that is not Judge Ellis in the EDVA. I have appeared before him in many cases and am quite familiar with him.
Yeah, but then the judge gives them two (2!) weeks to produce the scope doc. The Hoover building is just across the river from Alexandria.
How about, Courier that thing over by COB today, or else this case is dismissed with prejudice!!!
“But if Mr. Mueller refuses to turn over the full “scope” document concerning Mr. Mueller’s mandate, Judge Ellis would be justified in throwing out the indictment.”
For those familiar with ‘Stingrays’, which are portable ‘cell phone towers’ that the police use to monitor people’s communications (with or without a warrant); they were kept so secret for a while that governments would drop criminal cases when the defense attorneys got too close to forcing their existence to be disclosed. Obviously not such a big secret now.
In this case, Mueller really has no choice but to drop the Manafort case, due to the following:.
1. The judge is implying that if he doesn’t see the authorizing document, he throws out the case - if that happens, it shows that they are hiding some SERIOUS violations.
2. If the judge does see the documents, he’ll likely throw out the case, since they would have been provided by now, if there was nothing to hide. Obviously, the Manafort crap is well outside of the scope. The problem then becomes what of others being dragged around by Mueller (including Trump)...they now know that Mueller’s people are out of control, and they can fight him on those grounds.
3. If Mueller drops the case, then we’ll never be sure what’s in those documents...and Mueller will be a bit bruised, but he’ll still pretty much be free to keep roughing up people.
Bottom Line: Manafort walks....thankfully. Hopefully Trump reimburses him when this crap is over.
That’s not the good judge’s picture. That a picture of the corrupt (cash in the freezer) former congressman from Louisiana, William Jefferson.
I think the leftists at Wikipedia were trolling us by putting that picture in.
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Works for me.
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