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Manafort should also challenge the validity of the Special Counsel regulation promulgated by the Justice Department.

The DOJ regs purport to grant a Special Counsel “the full power and independent authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions of any United States Attorney.” 28 C.F.R. § 600.6

But a congressional statute requires that US Attorneys be confirmed by the Senate. 28 U.S. Code § 541

See https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3560542/posts

The DOJ cannot on its own create de facto US Attorneys that are not approved by the Senate. This was a drafting defect, and the Special Counsel regulation should have more narrowly made a Special Counsel’s power derivative to that of the AG.

It has been pointed out that Special Counsel Mueller has formed an office with more attorneys than the US Attorney for the District of Rhode Island.

Also, his jurisdiction is effectively unlimited, as seen by the Manafort prosecution which is unrelated to supposed Russian-Trump election collusion but apparently believed by Mueller to come under the heading of anything he stumbles across in his investigation, whether or not having to do with Russian-Trump election collusion.

And of course, the Special Counsel appointment itself failed to specify a crime that was to be investigated, itself a violation of the DOJ regs.