Paul Manafort and his legal team seem to be devoting a lot of energy towards challenging the authority of the Special Counsel to bring the charges that he brought. (An article today suggests he got a sympathetic ear from one judge.) What I’m wondering about is the significance of these challenges.
Suppose Manafort prevails and this indictment is dismissed on these grounds. Surely there must be someone who has authority to bring charges for these alleged crimes. So if these indictments are dismissed, you would have to think that whoever that someone is would immediately turn around and do the same thing that Mueller is doing, and then Manafort is back where he started but out a lot of legal fees.
The only thing I can think of is if Manafort believes these charges are so bogus that no one who wasn’t motivated to make him turn on Trump (or some other such motivation) would ever bring them. But in that case, it should be easy for him to defeat them in court.
Is there some legal reason that another prosecutor couldn’t bring the same charges? Or some other legal rationale for this gambit?
I see no reason another federal prosecutor could not bring the same charges.
There might be a few benefits to Manafort getting Mueller off the investigation.
Mueller’s team is highly capable and presumably the best informed about the charges. It’s possible that Manafort might have an easier time defending against less capable prosecutors who are less familiar with the facts.
People are assuming that Mueller wants this case in part to extract leverage from Manafort in the Russia investigation. Accordingly, Mueller would be highly motivated to apply a lot of pressure to Manafort to get his testimony to bolster his other cases. If this case is moved to other prosecutors who are not also involved in the Russia investigation, those prosecutors will have less to gain from extracting Manafort’s cooperation and thus less incentive to really hammer him or try to extract his statements on the Russia matters.
Mueller is somewhat isolated from the political hierarchy of the Department of Justice. Jeff Sessions is recused from the Russia investigation so Mueller and the investigation is being overseen by Rod Rosenstein, who has been very supportive of Mueller’s work. The money laundering charges against Manafort aren’t directly tied to the Russia investigation, so, if Mueller were removed from the case, Jeff Sessions would be back in the chain of command to oversee the charges leveled by a new prosecutor. Manafort might believe that Sessions would be more amenable to going easy on him or to otherwise interfere with the investigation on his behalf. I leave for the reader the exercise of guessing why Manafort believes that Sessions would go easier on him.
One more thing - if Mueller did exceed his authority, Manafort might try to exclude some of the evidence that Mueller gathered in his investigation. I doubt that would work, but it’s better to try and lose than never try at all.
Yes, the fact that other Federal prosecutors are appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the current President. So Manafort may believe that regular Federal prosecutors will decline to investigate or to bring charges against him, or that if they do so, the President will fire them. (That possibility is why we have a special prosecutor in the first place, actually.)
I don’t know if that counts as a “legal reason”, but it certainly is a realistic one.
I believe it’s federal agents in NY who just raided Michael Cohen’s offices based on issues raised by the special prosecutor. Hard to imagine that Manafort or his lawyers would put too much stock in that.
If you want to argue a political angle, a much more realistic scenario is that having a judge rule that Mueller was overreaching would give Trump more cover to pardon him (which is said to be a big part of Manafort’s thinking). But I was wondering more about legal ramifications.
Bottom line is that even if there is something such as “over reaching”, if there is smoking gun evidence of Manafort guilt, I’m not sure that is a valid defense.
It’s this one. And him moving to dismiss is a good way to beat them in court. Why give up a viable strategy to get the charges dismissed even if he is confident he can beat them later? You never know what a jury will do. Use every arrow in your quiver.
Aside from everything already mentioned, the legal rationale could also be simple delaying tactics. Keeping the powder dry until they see what shakes out in November?
I think he knows he’s totally screwed if it comes down to a trial based on facts and evidence. He’s throwing whatever Hail Mary plays he can come up with to try to keep it from coming to that.
I thought that I heard that Mueller simply pulled a file on Manafort’s investigation from years ago and that he was originally cleared by the FBI. If that is correct then I would assume that, absent the Special Council prosecution, this thing would go away. I can’t seem to find anything relating to the FBI clearing Manafort originally so I could be mistaken.
I agree. This fits in nicely with the other thread about plea bargaining. What we have in this case, as the Judge correctly noted, is not about the People of the United States getting justice because of Manafort’s bank fraud or money laundering. It is a tool, an abusive tool, to roll the dice and hope against hope than Manafort might have some testimony against Trump and he will squeal because of his fear (everyone’s fear) of prison.
This is not tolerable in a free society, and whether you are a Democrat or Republican, should be universally condemned.
As Rudi Giuliani seems to be demonstrating over the past few days - never underestimate the possibility that some “high profile” lawyers are not as smart as they or others claim. A lot of what passes for actual strategy is simply playing to the emotions of a judge or jury. Manafort’s legal strategy could simply be “fight fight fight” without a coherent long-term strategy.
Once again, keep the political potshots out of this thread. Any further remarks of this kind will receive a warning. Stick strictly to the legal issues raised in the OP.