Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, must have a good sense of humor. He sent his attorneys in to ask the judge for something completely outrageous. You cannot make this stuff up.
Sure, the president tried to pass it off that he barely knew the man who served as his campaign manager during the five most critical months of his 2016 presidential campaign. Manafort even carried the candidate all the way through the Republican National Convention.
Now, the former campaign chair has asked a judge to bar the prosecution from even mentioning Trump’s name during his first trial in Virginia, according to CBS News. Maybe, he will try again for his second trial in Washington D.C.
Manafort had been living in luxury in his multi-million dollar house arrest setting with the minor inconvenience of two ankle bracelets – one for each trial, provided he post bail. Then, he screwed it up by committing the crime of witness tampering.
The judge found nothing amusing about Manafort’s promise he would not do it again. She tossed him in jail on June 15th, and did not even let him go home first.
His attorneys argued that the court should not mention Trump, because all of their client’s alleged crimes occurred before he signed onto the 2016 presidential campaign. They filed the motion in federal court prior to Manafort’s first trial in Alexandria, VA.
The man was in big trouble. He hid tens of millions from the IRS while he was lobbying for Russian President Vladimir Putin-connected politicians in Ukraine. There are also the alleged crimes money-laundering and conspiracy against the U.S.
Trump’s former campaign manager’s attorneys Kevin Downing, Thomas Zehnle, and Jay Nanvati wrote, according to CBS News:
‘(T)here is a very real risk that the jurors in this case – most of whom likely have strong views about President Trump, or have likely formed strong opinions as to the well-publicized allegations that the campaign colluded with Russian officials – will be unable to separate their opinions and beliefs about those matters from the tax and bank fraud matters to be tried before them in this case.’
The defense attorneys argued to have the case thrown out, because Mueller’s investigation was strictly limited to the 2016 presidential election. Then, the attorneys questioned whether Mueller’s investigation had any relationship to Trump’s associates at all.
The judge for the Virginia trial, T.S. Ellis III appeared sympathetic to the defense. He had doubts about Manafort’s charge that the case was sufficiently linked to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign:
‘I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with what the special counsel is investigating.’
The Mueller prosecutors filed a motion to reject Manafort’s argument that he was a “victim of vindictive prosecution” at trial. In addition, they wanted to prohibit the defense from saying a previous investigation into the former campaign chair had no merit and was false. Of course, all such assertions were false.
Prosecutor’s Andrew Weissmann, Greg Andres, and Uzo Asonye wrote:
‘The government’s reasons for initiating a prosecution have nothing to do with whether the evidence at trial proves the elements of the charged offenses, which is the sole question that the jury must answer.’
After the judge ordered Manafort to jail, Trump tried to distance himself from his former campaign manager.
POTUS said:
‘You know, Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. He worked for Ronald Reagan. He worked for Bob Doe. He worked for John McCain, or his firm did. He worked for many other Republicans. He worked for me, what, for 49 days or something? A very short period of time.’
Very funny. The Alexandria pretrial hearing is set for June 29.
Featured Image via Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla.
