[Meet the New Boss]

Manafort's lawyers challenged whether the Special Counsel had the jurisdiction to indict Manafort on his business activities from 2005 involving the Ukrainian government, since the Special Counsel was given jurisdiction in May 2017 ONLY to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Manafort's lawyers argue that it appears Rosenstein tried to back-date authority for the Special Counsel to investigate Manafort's old business dealings in August 2017, AFTER the Special Counsel had already started using a grand jury and gotten search warrants to go after Manafort on this.

Sleazy counsel for Special Counsel Mueller appears to argue that Rosenstein gave secret authority to go after Manafort on his old business dealings in apparently oral "interactions" with Mueller back in May, before the raid on Manafort's home. How convenient.

And of course, counsel for the Special Counsel can't talk about these secret matters because, you know, um, national security and all that.

I would like to see Manafort's counsel raise the larger question: Stepping back, how can the DOJ take a private citizen, Robert Mueller, and confer on him all the power of a US Attorney to investigate, use a grand jury, indict, convict and send people to prison when the law requires that anyone given the awesome power of a US Attorney must be confirmed by the US Senate?

[Vendome]

“It covers bank fraud in 2005 and 2007?”

And no statute of limitations or are there statues of lamentations?

[ClearCase_guy]

I’m not a lawyer, and I didn’t read every word of this, but I found this impressive. I would not want to try and BS this judge. And I feel like the government was trying to BS this judge.

[JudgemAll]

This stuff stinks. Why all of a sudden a “Trump-Russia” friendly judge. Me think Manafort is a leftist plant setting up or influencing Trump, the only reason why they are not going after him. Alex Jones-RTNews and Manafort-Putinist Ukrainian axis to me loops back to Obama cck sucking Iran and Russia, and this is why they stopped Mueller there imo.

Alex Jones-Manafort is not getting sued, Hannity and Cohen are.

[Pearls Before Swine]

The judge’s comments about singing under pressure versus composing (making things up under pressure) are perceptive and relevant.

[Liz]

Many, many thanks for posting this.......savoring every
gilt-edged word uttered by the magnificent Judge Ellis.

BTW, kudos for your excellent formatting.

[Lent]

Having read the entirety I don’t get the sense the Judge is inclined to quash or dismiss the indictment. His questions and comments were pointed to be sure. That redacted document may have some bearing.

[Nifster]

Just appallingly bad. And Weissman the liar sat there and watched approvingly

The Feds should have known they were going to get excoriated. The questioning was brutal

[SE Mom]

Thank you for taking the time to post this - it’s easier to read than some other transcripts I tried wading through!

As a non-lawyer my understanding is that years ago the DoJ was working on a case against Manafort for various illegal schemes involving Russia and Ukraine. The case wasn’t active in 2016- maybe lack of proper evidence or interest by DoJ.

When Trump was elected and russiarussiarussia was brought to us for whatever reason, certain people at DoJ “found” this tired old case and used it as a way in the door for russiarussiarussia.

I like that this judge has ordered August 2nd to be read by him. I may be wrong, but I think some fishy stuff will be found in that memo.

Judge Ellis seems tough, fair and wily. Good traits for a judge.

[janetjanet998]

I will read the whole thing but I haven’t seen this is the media even on FOX:

“Special Counsel Mueller appears to argue that Rosenstein gave secret authority to go after Manafort on his old business dealings in apparently oral “interactions” with Mueller back in May, before the raid on Manafort’s home. How convenient.”

---

so they wrote down the scope in May..but shorty after that secretly amended it with “oral interactions”...then wrote those down on paper after the raid in a new “scope memo” in August

this must be why the Judge called them liars......the media needs to explain why the judge thought that way

[novemberslady]

Bttt

[nopardons]

Bttt

[nopardons]

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[nopardons]

Bttt

[SteveH]

Thanks for posting this. Nothing much to add to all the good comments except that I thought it was interesting that the judge dropped the name Archie cox. In doing So imho the judge is telegraphing that he is going to hold an honest hearing and that the prosecutors had better give their honest best. But It seems to me that that they are not giving their best. Also at the same time it might serve as a warning for trump not to fire mueller although trump is professing that he will not do that. I have also never seen a judge speculate in open court that a case might last beyond him and comment out loud about how much budget that the prosecutor has in a specific round dollar amount. I Don’t know how it will go but in a perfect world, imho the prosecution should have considerable difficulty prevailing due to the judges skepticism.