Discussion: Report: Trump Lawyer Called Manafort Raid An 'Abuse Of The Judicial Process'

Methinks they’re shitting bricks.

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So sue us.

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Oh?

And how closely has Manafort’s lawyer worked with the Russian mob?

And why would Manafort provide propaganda services for such an awful country?

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I love the irony of condemning the raid as reminiscent of Putin’s Russia. This is half rhetorical but why is he so vigorously criticizing the search warrant when it’s not even his client? It just strikes me as ethically dubious.

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I thought John Dowd was tRUMP attorney? Why is he out speaking and advocating for Manafort? Does not Manafort have his own counsel? Obviously, the magistrate saw good cause to sign the search warrant – Dowd should take up his complaints with the court.

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The fat is starting to sizzle on the fire…

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The WSJ reporter claims not to have received any such email from Dowd that Fox reported. The email in question says:

Dowd wrote. “In addition, given the obvious unlawful deficiencies, this extraordinary invasive tool was employed for its shock value to try to intimidate Mr. Manafort and bring him to his needs. These methods are normally found and employed in Russia not America.”

“Bring him to his needs”? It seems unlikely that a lawyer such as Dowd would write that phrase.

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You are correct that, as Trump’s attorney (who presumably has no personal knowledge of the warrant, its contents, or the actual raid itself) he has no business commenting on this at all. By having done so he is showing that Trump and Manafort are linked…i.e., if the feds have evidence that Manafort committed a crime why is Trump concerned, unless that evidence may pose a problem for him? His lawyer’s statements only draws attention to Trump so why make them?

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So if I read this article correctly, Fox is reporting that Dowd said this (which is deeply out of character for a longtime DC attorney) but everyone else is denying it, except for Dowd, who has a no comment? Hmm.

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Trump craves loyalty. Most likely Dowd wants to make certain that he’s seen as being aggressively loyal and defensive of Trump’s interests. Dowd has an audience of one, maybe three if you include “Javanka”

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Third graf from end, “separately” is misspelled.

Hey, waddaya want, the facts are too murky about this whole weird thing to even comment on it.

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None of the good lawyers will work for Trump - “he won’t pay, and he won’t listen.” So Trump ends up with the clumsy, inept members of the bar.

It’s unlikely that any competent lawyer would have said any of these things, including the part where he capitalized “Search Warrant” like some semi-literate Facebook shrieker.

[I]t appears the Search Warrant here was obtained by a gross abuse of the judicial process by the Special Counsel’s office,” Dowd wrote. “In addition, given the obvious unlawful deficiencies, this extraordinary invasive tool was employed for its shock value to try to intimidate Mr. Manafort and bring him to his needs [sic]. These methods are normally found and employed in Russia not America.

Short of taking the day off to write a treatise on the law of search and seizure, I lack the ability to convey to the lay reader how utterly, shatteringly stupid this statement is. I genuinely question the authenticity of this email because I cannot conceive of anyone licensed to practice law saying this in private correspondence with a reporter. Indeed, I question whether the author speaks English as a first language or, If he does, whether he has a BA, much less a JD.

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"These failures by Special Counsel to exhaust less intrusive methods is a fatal flaw in the warrant process and would call for a Motion to Suppress the fruits of the search.”

I may be wrong, but I’m not aware of any requirement to exhaust “less intrusive means” in terms of evidence collection by warrant. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but this strikes me as hogwash. Maybe this is the exception for Republicans or something.

I’m sure there are a lot of drug dealers out there who would like the cops to ask them nicely before executing a search warrant at their homes.

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A little scared there, Mr. Lawyer? hahahahahahahaha

Just like Russia huh? Then you better watch your ass and your client’s ass - beware of men carrying umbrellas.

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You’re going to have a mighty tall job proving that Manafort would not potentially destroy evidence, given his lifelong history with the Russian oligarchs and mafia.

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Good points.
The story made me think that, if true, this also means that Trump’s lawyer was calling into question the integrity of the judge who signed off on the warrant.
I expect that this was leaked to Fox in order to win the news cycle–not as an actual email from the attorney, but official enough that he isn’t actually denying it.

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So, it’s just after 2:00 p.m. in DC and Dowd is already “tired out?” It’s going to be a long summer for him.

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