The lawyers representing Paul Manafort have filed a motion for dismissal of many of the charges against their client based on the fact that Rod Rosenstein gave dirty cop Robert Mueller too large a mandate that is not supported by laws that created the special counsel.
Mueller’s investigation is supposed to be about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but the charges against Manafort was for transactions that occurred a decade before he joined the Trump campaign. Manafort has already filed a civil court complaint over this very matter.
Lawyers Kevin Downing and Thomas Zehnle wrote:
“Granting the Special Counsel jurisdiction ex ante to pursue any matters ‘that arose or may arise directly from the investigation’ bypassses the required consultation, it bypasses the Attorney General’s issue-specific determination; and, with those, it bypasses the decision by a politically accountable official that the Special Counsel regulations were designed to ensure. That further power is not merely tantamount to a blank check. It is a blank check the Special Counsel has cashed repeatedly.”
The lawyers also noted that even if the broad mandate given to dirty cop Mueller were not too far reaching that Mueller has gone far beyond that even.
Justice Department lawyers have defended the legality of Mueller’s appointment. In addition, government attorneys have argued that Manafort has no legal standing to challenge internal Justice Department regulations that essentially allocate work among federal prosecutors.
Rosenstein said in an interview Monday that he is supervising Mueller’s activities.
“The special counsel is not an unguided missile,” Rosenstein told USA Today.
Manafort’s lawyers also filed separate motions Wednesday night challenging specific charges in the D.C. indictment.
The lawyers asked for dismissal of other charges because they did not involve any criminal act for profit but because he had not registered as representing a foreign client as required by law.
They argued that other charges are duplicates and he cannot be prosecuted for the same crime twice.