Manhattan DA Appeals Ruling In Bid To Revive State-Level Prosecution Of Paul Manafort | Talking Points Memo

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance appealed a December 2019 ruling throwing out a state-level prosecution of Paul Manafort, moving to revive a case that could keep the former Trump campaign chair behind bars even after a potential future Presidential pardon.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1318383
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And the gist of the appeal (dated “April 2020”):

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Is Vance trying to atone?

Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors. Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case. Kasowitz subsequently boasted to colleagues about representing the Trump children, according to two people. He said that the case was “really dangerous,” one person said, and that it was “amazing I got them off.” (Kasowitz denied making such a statement.)

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The more of the Trump criminal organization that gets jailed (federal, state or local charges) the better off society will be.

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The brief’s argument seems weak to me. The case hinges on whether the state and federal statutes were designed to promote different objectives. The state claims the federal banking fraud statute was designed to protect financial institutions, while the state mortgage fraud statute was designed to protect consumers. They rely on legislative history for the latter, while basically ignoring that that the text of the state statute was obviously drafted to capture all kinds of financial fraud, regardless of who the victim was.

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a good description of double jeopardy, here:

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-prohibition-against-double-jeopardy.html

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