Free Republic

The jury in the criminal tax and bank fraud trial against one-time Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort signaled in a note to the judge Friday afternoon they are unlikely to reach a verdict before the weekend. In a note to Judge T.S. Ellis III, the jury said they would like to finish at 5 p.m. because one of the jurors has an event they would like to attend. Ellis said he will bring the jury back in the courtroom at ten minutes to 5 p.m. to ask what time they would like to reconvene on Monday. The jury deliberations now...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is trying to head off the Paul Manafort defense team from questioning his prosecutors over press leaks. Mr. Mueller filed papers in U.S. District Court in Virginia opposing a request from Manafort attorney Kevin Downing to hold an investigative hearing into the rash of press reports on Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager. Mr. Downing cited 10 stories, sourced to unnamed people who implicated Mr. Manafort in possible criminal activity. He contends the information came from grand jury testimony, which would be illegal for a prosecutor to leak. In a footnote to his filing, Mr....

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is directly challenging Special Counsel Robert Mueller, charging in a law suit filed on Wednesday that the prosecutor lacked the legal authority to investigate and indict him on pre-2016 money laundering charges. Calling the indictment “fanciful,” attorney Kevin Downing’s suit in U.S. District Court says Mr. Mueller was appointed in May with a mandate to investigate possible Russia-Trump campaign collusion in the hacking of Democrat Party computers.

MIAMI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The jailed whistleblower in a landmark tax evasion case against UBS AG is accusing a top U.S. Justice Department lawyer of "criminal conduct" for thwarting his efforts to cooperate with investigations of the Swiss bank by federal regulators and the U.S. Senate. Bradley Birkenfeld, who was instrumental in exposing widespread tax evasion by wealthy American clients of UBS, detailed the alleged misconduct involving the Justice Department's Kevin Downing in a telephone interview on Thursday. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. The 45-year-old former UBS banker spoke to Reuters from the federal prison in Pennsylvania...

NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a security guard has died after a man walked into a federal building in Manhattan and opened fire. The guard, identified by his union as Idrisa Camara, died shortly after the shooting Friday evening. Police say the gunman walked through a side entrance of the building that houses an immigration court and other government offices. Chief James O'Neil says the gunman later shot himself in the head. He was found dead in the building. A law enforcement official identified the shooter as Kevin Downing, of Fort Lee, New Jersey.