What do you think the odds are that Manafort’s attorney asks for the charges against his client to be dismissed on the grounds that Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel doesn’t meet the statutory requirements? In other words he challenges Mr. Mueller’s standing to file charges.
They will definitely ask for it. There is precious little evidence to suggest there is a problem, so they won’t get it.
Steve
Seems like a hopeless argument since it is the Grand Jury, not Mueller, that actually issued the indictment.
I think his lawyers will aggressively challenge everything. He has the resources and what he doesn’t spend will belong to the government if convicted.
As somewhat of an aside my former Congressman, Aaron Schock, who resigned in response to a grand jury indictment for misusing his Congressional allowance on things like decorating his office in the style of Downtown Abbey, just got a couple of counts stricken because of proprietorial misconduct.
The prosecutors apparently told the Grand Jury that Schock had been asked to testify before them, but refused. A violation of his Constitutional right against self-incrimination. And then the prosecutors lied about it, and the Judge was not happy when he discovered the Prosecution had done this eleven times. He directed the U.S. Attorney to review the accuracy of claims made by his office in pending motions to dismiss to ensure that none are misleading. Schock is appealing, presumably to argue all counts should have been dismissed.
OT question PD- We were discussing Trump pardoning these guys. I think he will. His base will go wild over it. However, I realized that i honestly didn’t know if a pardon can be granted before conviction. If Manafort has anything on Trump, you would think Trump would want to pardon before a deal can be reached. OTOH, Trump can just make sure Manafort knows he will get one. So, can Trump grant a pardon now, before a trial? (IANAL)
Steve
I’m sorry to hear you had to tolerate that little twit, PD.
What about the FISA surveillance? Any reasonable lawyer ought to find out how much the persecution’s case was derived from FISA surveillance and the motivation for using FISA vs a regular warrant.
@Steve , I think the President can pardon past conduct even though it hasn’t reached conviction, but the pardon would have to be accepted by Manafort to stop legal process against him. Acceptance means he was guilty / would have been convicted.
Steve,
Nixon was pardoned for “all offenses against the United States which he…has committed or may have committed or taken part” while in office. Nixon was never indicted nor impeached. His pardon covers any crimes that were unknown. So he was pardoned well before any conviction.
I don’t see any reason why Trump can’t pardon Manafort or anyone else as that power does not have many limits.
Not that pardoning by Trump will have any effect on state proceedings against Manafort.
I wonder if we could get PD to provide some context on the meat of the charges. Because the notion of money laundering seems to fail as the source of funds was legal, even if the provider sleazy, and the funds did arrive in the US, with no US evasion. Also, the charge about foreign registration seems more like a reporting failure one might commit at the DMV than one of the magnitude reported.
The Dems have concluded that Manafort is clearly an ax murderer. I’m not really sure where Republicans stand. And without context I’m not sure where I should stand.
@Drew, I know very little about this area of law. I thought Andrew McCarthy, a former prosecutor, had interesting comments along the lines you are discussing:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453305/paul-manafort-indictment-mystifying-enigmatic
He thinks there are uncharged charges waiting in the wings, or there is some underlying issue not apparent.
Thanks