Eight years ago, Paul Manafort was being investigated by an eager young attorney. The investigation went on for a very long time and when it was finished the disappointed young prosecutor exonerated Manafort and they dropped the investigation. Does anyone know the name of that young prosecutor? No?
It was someone by the name of Rod Rosenstein. Provocative isn’t it? But here’s where it could get very interesting real fast. Manafort’s lawyers could call Rosenstein and asked him what changed in the past eight years. But the most important thing that would come out of that testimony is that Rosenstein would have to immediately recuse himself from the Mueller probe. You can’t be a prosecutor and a witness for the defense.
Something else important happened on day two of Manafort’s trial. The prosecutors told Judge TS Ellis that they are not going to call Rick Gates, their star witness to the stand. That is earth shattering news because Gates has been billed as the man to take Manafort down. Manafort’s lawyers have claimed that Gates was the mastermind of the illegal acts. He was their number one piece of evidence against Manafort. The only reason you would not call him is that you don’t want him cross-examined. Something is rotten in Denmark.
Here’s the Transcript via Bizzy Blog:
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Here’s Manafort’s defense: I was investigated for all this by the government eight years ago, and I was exonerated. And I’m going to put on the stand as my first witness the young lawyer who exonerated me.
You know who that young lawyer is? Rod Rosenstein.
STEVE DOOCY: What?
NAPOLITANO: Yes! So this is going to be quite a show if they succeed in getting Rosenstein, who now runs the Justice Department —
DOOCY: So why was I innocent then and guilty now?
NAPOLITANO: There you go.