***Breaking AP: This horrible day just got better! Manafort to stand trial on all charges in VA!****

[Gothmog]

16. Judge rejects Manafort's challenge to Mueller's legitimacy

Yeah https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/26/judge-rejects-challenge-676814

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's challenge to the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III dashes the hopes of many allies of President Donald Trump's that Ellis would deliver a crippling blow to Mueller's office and undermine the legal legitimacy of his appointment....

Ellis's 31-page written opinion is rife with skepticism about the special counsel mechanism and about Mueller's pursuit of fraud charges against Manafort. But the judge ultimately concluded that Manafort's attorneys had not made a sufficient legal case to justify tossing out his indictment.

"The Special Counsel’s appointment was consistent with both constitutional requirements regarding appointment of officers and statutory requirements governing the authority to conduct criminal litigation on behalf of the United States, the Special Counsel had legal authority to investigate and to prosecute this matter and dismissal of the Superseding Indictment is not warranted," the Reagan appointee wrote

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