I have a question for the Judge that questioned Mueller"s motives.

[kentuck]

Judge Ellis accused Mueller's team of trying to get Manafort to "flip" on the trump. If the trump has done nothing wrong, how can Manafort "flip" on him. How can Mueller's team get anything on Donald Trump if he has done nothing wrong? What type of Judge would make such comments unless he thought someone was guilty of a crime? Obviously, the Judge does not believe Donald Trump is innocent.

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This is from the right-wing National Review, for what it's worth.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/robert-mueller-paul-manafort-team-accused-lying/

<snip>
“I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” Ellis said.

Dreeben reportedly argued that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein provided them broad authority to pursue any criminal activity they discovered in the course of investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Ellis was unconvinced, pointing out that some of the relevant information in Manafort’s case came from an earlier Department of Justice investigation, not the special counsel’s probe, according to Fox News.

The judge then proceeded to summarize the prosecution’s case: “We said this was what the investigation was about but we are not bound by it and we were lying,” he said. “C’mon Man!”

....more

[LakeArenal]

1. Are we allowed to question Judge Ellis's motives?

[kentuck]

2. I just did.

[LakeArenal]

3. Yes I see that..

Just wondering in Dump world if that is even allowed.

[unblock]

4. doesn't matter. it's a technical question, i don't think we can evaluate it without the transcript.

mueller can't charge anyone with any violation of federal law. it has to be related to the specific investigation his office was set up for.

manafort is clearly a relevant witness and has evidence pertaining to some crimes that fall within mueller's scope. that much seems clear, and is why mueller wants to flip him.

the question is, did manafort himself commit crimes that fall within mueller's scope? if so, using them to try to flip him is fine.

if not, that may be a problem for mueller. he's not free to find any old federal crime to charge manafort with in the hopes of flipping him. any crime he charges manafort with also has to be fall within mueller's scope.

that said, mueller could coordinate with other parts of the doj and have another prosecutor charge manafort with the crimes that fall outside of mueller's scope and work out a deal together to get manafort to flip.


without knowing more about the whole exchange and how mueller came to know of the crimes he charged manafort with, i don't think we can properly evaluate if mueller really has a problem here.

from what i can tell, though, it's certainly a reasonable line of inquiry on the part of the judge.

i just hope mueller has the right answers.

[emulatorloo]

5. Mueller is authorized by Rosenstein to investigate Manafort's antics in the Ukraine

So it is within his scope.


This is an older article


Justice official authorized Mueller to investigate whether Trump campaign chair colluded with Russia

By Spencer S. Hsu and Rosalind S. Helderman April 3

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/justice-official-authorized-mueller-to-investigate-whether-trump-campaign-chair-colluded-with-russia/2018/04/03/ffa78ac4-3738-11e8-acd5-35eac230e514_story.html?utm_term=.7d16eca66e09

The new filings show that Rosenstein specifically approved lines of investigation for the special counsel in an August 2017 memo. A version of the memo filed in court showed that Rosenstein signed off on an investigation of whether Manafort “committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials” and of Manafort’s work as an international political consultant in Ukraine before joining Trump’s campaign.

————-

[unblock]

6. Good -- hopefully answers along these lines satisfied the judge.

My point is just that it's a reasonable question for the judge to ask.

[emulatorloo]

7. Don't quote me because I am not 100% sure

but I think the judge has asked to see an unredacted version of the memo, which won’t be shown to Manafort.

[sarah FAILIN]

8. This made me worder about the judge

Doesn't he think all crime is criminally prosecutable?

[unblock]

9. It is, just not by mueller.

Special prosecutors have specifically defined scopes. They can't charge people for crimes outside their scope.

Other prosecutors can, though.

[emulatorloo]

10. Great thread analyzing the hearing transcript if you are interested

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210584266

Worth the read if you have the time.