U.S. judge questions special counsel's powers in Manafort case

www.reuters.com ^ | 05/04/2018 | Sarah N. Lynch

[Red Badger]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sharply criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal case in Virginia against President Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and openly questioned whether Mueller exceeded his prosecutorial powers by bringing it.

“I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis in the Eastern District of Virginia said.

At tense hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the judge said Mueller should not have “unfettered power” in his Russia probe and that the charges against Manafort did not arise from the investigation into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Manafort is facing charges in both Virginia and Washington. The Virginia case charges him with offenses including tax and bank fraud. The other case accuses him of conspiring to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent when he lobbied for the pro-Russia Ukrainian government.

None of the charges relate, however, to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign or possible collusion with Russia. Trump has denied any collusion.

[Brown Deer]

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=J000070

JEFFERSON, William Jennings, a Representative from Louisiana; born in Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La., March 14, 1947; G.W. Griffin High School, Lake Providence, La.; B.A., Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College, Baton Rouge, La., 1969; J.D., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1972; United States Army, c. 1969-1975; lawyer, private practice; law clerk for United States District Judge Alvin B. Rubin, Eastern District of Louisiana, 1972-1973; staff, United States Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, 1973-1975; member of the Louisiana state senate, 1979-1990; candidate for Mayor of New Orleans in 1982 and 1986; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Second and to the eight succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1991-January 3, 2009); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Eleventh Congress in 2008.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-13-jefferson-bribe-sentence_N.htm

[Brown Deer]

[doug from upland]

Photo was put out by media. I corrected it in #85 if you missed it.