Hmmmm. Why does it matter to the judge?
The matter before the court are the charges in the docket.
Something smells.
Oh, Jesus.
And yeah, before anyone asks, senior status Reagan appointee.
What can the judge do?
Oh, nothing really important. He only has the power to dismiss the case on the grounds that it’s outside Mueller’s mandate.
I thought Rosenstein got to decide what falls under Mueller’s mandate.
Holy shit…you’ve got to be kidding me. He better not be thinking about Kennedy’s retirement rumors.
Wasn’t Mueller’s mandate to follow evidence wherever it went, and to pursue any crimes uncovered?
Your Honor i know my client is a hit man for the mob but you must dismiss the case against him because what they really are after is info on the mob boss and not the hit man.
I don’t think so
If this Judge is a Reaganite he probably hates the Red menace.
Meuller’s team will go to the judge and say look at this shit
Allowing Russians to dictate a party platform among other things .
Manafort is married to the Russians and was the conduit for all things Russian
Yes. The question, however, is what is this judge’s mandate and where did it come from?
Ellis also hypothesized several times that Mueller’s team brought charges against Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates in order to push them to turn over information on the Trump campaign.
Yeah, I’m confused about this. Seems to me that Manafort’s work on Rump’s campaign dovetails with the Virginia indictment. If the judge doesn’t see this, I think we should be prepared for some serious f*ckery.
At the beginning of the hearing, Ellis noted that the Justice Department was aware of some of Manafort’s activities in Ukraine that led to the charges in the Virginia indictment before Mueller was appointed and pointed out several times that the charges against Manafort were not related to Russian election interference.
I don’t agree with the judge in his implication because it’s precisely Manafort’s involvement in internal Ukranian politics on behalf of Russia and Russian oligarchs that led him to offer his services to Trump as campaign manager pro bono. And he offered Russia privileged information about the campaign to be “made whole” with Deripaska. There is a clear linear relationship here leading to conspiracy to defraud the USA.
I don’t understand how the judge can dismiss the charges on the ground that it’s outside Mueller’s mandate. As long as he’s been properly appointed by the DoJ with the powers of a US Attorney, I don’t see how the court can dismiss the charges on any grounds other than the usual grounds for granting a motion to dismiss. I also understood, as @lb22 mentioned, that Mueller’s mandate is to pursue crimes uncovered in the course of his investigation.
Hopefully he just wants to appear impartial and he’s a republican appointee doing his due diligence blah blah blah and isn’t a whackadoodle
If the judge is a Reaganite, he’s likely a self-serving douche who knows very well that ruling in Manafort’s favor would be very very appreciated by Trump, who likes to do favors in return…and there’s a certain SCOTUS justice rumored to be mulling retirement soon…
Fortunately, since he’s a senior judge, he’s unlikely to be in the running.
Kennedy just fully staffed … got all the ducks in a row …
I don’t think he’s going anywhere –
I hope you’re right, but this is Trump we’re talking about. This judge rules for Manafort and Trump will be his new BFF, talking about how he’s the smartest most honest judge on the planet.
Assuming for a moment that it’s relevant, couldn’t the prosecutors meet in camera to disclose any sensitive information? And couldn’t the case simply be referred to the appropriate US attorney even if it doesn’t fall under Mueller’s mandate?