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In a long-awaited decision Tuesday, Federal Judge T.S. Ellis rejected Manafort's request to dismiss the criminal financial charges that the former President of the Trump campaign is facing in Virginia. Manafort had argued that special advocate Robert Mueller did not have the power to bring the case because it was not related to his work for the 2016 campaign.
Tuesday's decision makes it even more difficult to fight Manafort.
Some court observers were waiting for Ellis to side with Manafort and give him a pre-trial victory. Ellis had expressed his own frustrations with the Special Advisor's investigation at a hearing on Manafort's application in early May, calling it an attempt to go to the president. Donald Trump.
Trump himself congratulated Ellis after the hearing and used the judge's comments to claim that Mueller's investigation was a "witch hunt".
But Ellis said Tuesday that the case against Manafort should be upheld. The lobbying work that Manafort had done for a pro-Russian Ukrainian president, even in the years leading up to the 2016 campaign, "justified the investigation here," writes Ellis.
"No interpretive gymnastics is necessary to determine that the investigation in question falls within the" authority of Mueller, "the judge wrote.
Yet Ellis swept the budget and jurisdiction of the Mueller team, and warned that the public might believe "that the Special Council is being deployed as a political weapon".
"This case reminds us that in the end, our system of checks and balances and limitations of the powers of each branch, although extremely well designed, ultimately only works if people of virtue, sensitivity and courage choose to hope that the people responsible for this lawsuit, including the special advisor and assistant attorney general, are such people, "Ellis wrote.
The case of Virginia de Manafort, for alleged fraud and tax crimes, must be judged by a jury in late July. Another federal judge, Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, also felt that Mueller's charges should not be dismissed, and Manafort should be tried for the second time in September, for conspiracy to launder money, to rape foreign lobbyists and to tamper with witnesses.
Prosecution tactics
In his view on Tuesday, Ellis accuses federal prosecutors of wanting to "overthrow" Manafort – win his guilty and cooperative plea, as they did with his longtime business partner Rick Gates and with him. Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn – so that they can pursue cases against Trump and other campaigners.
"Although these high-pressure tactics are neither unusual nor illegal, they are unpleasant," Ellis wrote on Tuesday. "If a special advocate does not discover any criminal activity, then the investigation may be perceived as a waste of time and resources, and therefore a special advocate has a strong incentive to uncover crime and prosecute criminals." by the people he accused of investigating – here people related to the Trump campaign. "
The decision further strengthens the hand of the prosecution against Manafort as the team continues to investigate him and others for possible collusion with the Russians.
Up to now, prosecutors have carried 25 criminal charges against Manafort that carry a maximum total of more than 300 years in prison. Until now, Manafort has lost on several claims that he has made to reduce the evidence and the charges against him.
If a juror finds the 69-year-old politician guilty of the financial burdens he faces, he would likely lose much of his property to the government and spend the rest of his life in jail.
Previously and repeatedly, Manafort vowed to fight the charges.
A spokesman for Manafort declined to comment following the announcement on Tuesday.
Manafort is awaiting trial in a Virginia prison after the DC judge revoked his bail on June 15 for allegedly contacting witnesses. His case has a hearing before Ellis on Friday that will set several ground rules for the first trial.
Manafort's lawyers said their client might not appear in person on Friday because traveling from the Warsaw, Virginia, regional jail, where he is being held at the Alexandria courthouse two hours away is too far away .
Arguments against Mueller
Ellis' opinion Tuesday, though loaded with political comment, takes some of the wind off arguments that other prosecutors have used to attack Mueller.
In a footnote, Ellis seems to reject the argument that another defendant of the Mueller probe, Concord Management and Consulting, had done in his DC criminal case the day before. The Russian company has asked another federal judge to dismiss the conspiracy case against her – and invalidate Mueller's operation widely – for constitutional reasons. Mueller needed to have been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to bring criminal charges, the Concord team said.
But Ellis says that legal reasoning does not work. "It should be noted that such an objection would probably fail," he wrote on Tuesday.
Even Trump's defense lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had applauded Ellis's outspoken on Manafort, as a way to strengthen the president's opposition to Mueller.
"I am really pleased with the analysis of the judge of the Manafort case, his furious warnings to the special advocate, because they apply with the same force to our case," he said. Giuliani told CNN in May.
The defense team of Giuliani and Trump fought with Mueller for months on the possibility of an investigative interview with the president. The Trump team insisted that the president can not be summoned to appear or charged.
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