infinitys_7th
Member
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/4/17319554/manafort-hearing-robert-mueller-judge-ellis
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. If his indictment, which by the judge's statement has nothing to do with the 2016 election, if dismissed, Mueller's handful of decade-old infractions that still have nothing to do with the intended scope of his investigation will all be on the line.
A federal judge expressed skepticism about special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-reaching probe Friday morning during a hearing related to charges Paul Manafort is facing in Virginia.
Judge T.S. Ellis III suggested that he suspected Mueller’s team only charged Manafort with 18 counts of bank fraud and other charges in Virginia as a way to “get” to President Donald Trump — and suggested Mueller shouldn’t have “unfettered power” to do that, NBC’s Ken Dilanian reports.
“I don’t see what relation this indictment has with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” Ellis said, according to Politico’s Josh Gerstein. “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.”
If Ellis does in fact end up dismissing Manafort’s Virginia indictment (and, for what it’s worth, many smart court reporters are skeptical that he ultimately will), it wouldn’t get Manafort completely out of the woods, as he’d still face charges in Washington. But it would be a dramatic defeat for Mueller, with major implications for his strategy as a whole — which, it seems, has relied heavily on bringing or threatening unrelated charges against Trump associates to try to get them to “flip.”
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. If his indictment, which by the judge's statement has nothing to do with the 2016 election, if dismissed, Mueller's handful of decade-old infractions that still have nothing to do with the intended scope of his investigation will all be on the line.
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