A federal judge has rebuked the special counsel investigating alleged collusion between Trump aides and Russia, for overstepping his bounds in a criminal case against the president’s former campaign manager.
Robert Mueller last year brought tax and bank fraud charges against Paul Manafort, the first indictment in the Russia investigation. Manafort maintains his innocence.
On Friday TS Ellis, a judge in the eastern district of Virginia, suggested that Mueller’s real motivation for pursuing Manafort was to compel him to “sing” against Trump.
“You don’t really care about Mr Manafort’s bank fraud,” the judge, reportedly losing his temper, challenged lawyers from the office of special counsel. “You really care about getting information Mr Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”
The comments, at a tense court hearing in Alexandria, were a boost for Manafort’s lawyers who contend that the charges against him are outside Mueller’s mandate to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Ellis added: “I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorised to investigate.
“We don’t want anyone in this country with unfettered power. It’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me the special prosecutor has power to do anything he or she wants. The American people feel pretty strongly that no one has unfettered power.”
Trump seized on the judge’s comments. Addressing a National Rifle Association convention in Dallas, Texas, he brandished a CNN report of the court hearing and read excerpts to the sympathetic audience.
The president described Manafort as “a nice guy” who worked for him for “a couple of months” – it was actually five months – as well as for other senior Republicans. Judge Ellis was “something very special”, he said, claiming the questioning of Mueller’s motives demonstrated that the investigation was a “witch-hunt”.
Trump added triumphantly: “Let me tell you folks, we’re all fighting battles, but I love fighting these battles.” There were cheers from the audience.
Manafort is facing charges in Virginia and Washington DC. The Virginia indictment alleges that he concealed tens of millions of dollars he earned advising pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine from the Internal Revenue Service, before Trump ran for president.
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. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Ellis withheld ruling on dismissal of the indictment. He asked the special counsel’s office to share privately with him a copy of deputy attorney general Rod Rosentein’s August 2017 memo elaborating on the scope of Mueller’s Russia investigation. The current version has been heavily redacted, he said.
Leaving the White House on his way to Texas on Friday, Trump claimed he would welcome an interview with Mueller.
“So I would love to speak,” he told reporters. “I would love to go. Nothing I want to do more, because we did nothing wrong. We ran a great campaign. We won easily.”
But he added: “I have to find that we’re going to be treated fairly, because everybody sees it now, and it is a pure witch-hunt. Right now, it’s a pure witch-hunt.”
