U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has questioned the scope of the authority granted Special Counsel Robert Mueller by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
During a hearing in one of the criminal cases against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Judge Jackson cast doubt upon the directive appointing Mueller and its broad-brush approach to the investigation. Mueller’s directive allows him to probe the alleged connections between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, as well as issues that “may arise” in the course of that investigation.
But Justice Department regulations mandate that a directive must describe a “specific factual matter” to the special counsel. “That’s a fair point,” Jackson said when the point was raised by Manafort’s lead defense attorney, Kevin Downing. “I don’t think that, as good as he is, that the deputy attorney general can see into the future.”
It does not, however, seem likely that even questioning the breadth of Mueller’s authority will do anything to save Manafort from his reckoning. He faces 23 counts across two indictments in both Washington and Virgina, including failure to register as an agent of Ukraine, money laundering, bank fraud, tax evasion, and failing to report foreign bank accounts.
But Manafort’s lawyers continue to push the issue, trying to invalidate the investigation if they cannot answer the charges themselves. They contend that Mueller has gone even further than was authorized by Rosenstein, and that even his authorization was against Justice Department rules.
“I don’t know how they can violate these regulations and we can still be here and it doesn’t matter,” Downing said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Making a career out of going after anyone that is or was a Trump ally is no way to go through life. Show that there is rock hard evidence to continue this sham or shut it down.
DNC sues Russia, Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over alleged election interference
Here’s some specificity:
The entire complaint, filed on April 20, 2018 in the Federal District Court in Manhattan, can be viewed here, about halfway down the page: DNC sues Russia, WikiLeaks, Trump campaign associates, alleging conspiracy
@Greg: Bwahahahaha what a farce, if Mueller cant prove it how will they? Are they going to release the server that was “hacked” for a real examination? Prove votes were changed? Prove crooked Hillary was a good candidate not drunk during the campaign?
Maybe Mueller will prove it. People talk as if his investigation has found nothing, but no one on the outside of it actually knows. He’s certainly not going to tip his hand. He saw what happened when Comey revealed a little more than he should have.
The DNC’s suit makes the investigation harder to shut down. Most likely that’s the point of it, since republican Congressional leaders are blocking any legislative efforts to protect Mueller until the investigation is done.
@Greg: Maybe the defense will prove the only collusion was the DNC and Hillary so dumb she couldnt win a rigged election.
@Greg:
So, a couple million dollars of dubious Facebook adds is an “all-out assault on our democracy”? I believe kitt said it best when he wrote, “Bwahahahaha what a farce”.
I was turkey hunting over the weekend and had no connection to the news. I only just now heard Perez’s excuse for filing this stupid lawsuit; a “mountain” of evidence that has been turned up. “Mountain”? Really? There is not even a molehill to make a mountain out of. So, the sole purpose of this frivolous lawsuit, clogging up the legal system and wasting judge’s time, is to put forth the propaganda that there is some justification for this stupidity.
Even with the aid of illegal surveillance long before the “Russian collusion” meme was invented, you whining, sore loser leftists have not been able to find one single shred of a shred of evidence the Russian action influenced a single vote or that Trump was in any way, form or fashion involved, included or supported. If this is how the DNC wants to waste their (well… other people’s) money, have at it. We know who colluded with Russians to try and affect the election; HILLARY.
@kitt:
You actually think that smoking gun still exists? The DNC made it more than clear that the LAST thing they wanted was for someone not politically reliable and allied with the DNC to look at that server. Lord knows what was (WAS) on it. That probably got the drop-hammer treatment.
As we have clearly seen, despite your proclamation that Mueller is protecting all the information found with great security, whenever there is anything that can be used to embarrass Trump, true or not, it WILL be leaked. So, it there was any validation of ANY of your accusations found, we WOULD definitely know about it.
Yeah, when Comey revealed Trump was NOT under any investigation, Trump fired his incompetent, whiny, crybaby, leaking ass. If Mueller revealed he had spent a year and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to find some basis to support the ongoing leftist accusation that Trump colluded with Russians and can’t find, even with the benefit of illegal surveillance against anyone associated with Trump, anything that will support their impeachment dreams alive, he WILL be fired… by the Democrats. Mueller, you had ONE job….
@Deplorable Me: It kind of stands to reason if they had anything it would have leaked by now. Leaks are SOP to these people.
Mueller, who has leaked virtually nothing, seems to prefer indictments.
@Greg: Oh, so when one of his liberal underlings do the leaking, he isn’t responsible? I forgot; responsibility is not a left wing tenet, is it?
Mueller leaks to cover the fact that he is conducting an investigation to nowhere.