BREAKING: Federal Judge Ruins Manafort’s Wednesday With Warrant Affidavits Ruling

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It seems that all of the president’s men have focused on obtaining unredacted materials from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Devin Nunes tried in a private briefing with the top intelligence leaders. The House intelligence committee demanded it, too. Then, along came Paul Manafort.

Manafort was the chairman of the Trump campaign at one time. Now, he has been sitting at home wearing two ankle bracelets that track his every step and refusing to turn states evidence to Mueller.

All of these men have been looking for ways to find out what the investigation has on Trump. If the president’s attorneys knew the extent of the special counsel’s probe, they could build a better defense around it.

Unfortunately for Manafort, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson denied his request for unredacted copies of the warrants Mueller’s affidavits. These came from the probe into Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election and beyond and any possible conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign.

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Jackson wrote in her order that the redactions were reasonable:

‘(Mueller) need not reveal the redacted information to the defendant at this time. There is nothing in the redactions that relates to any of the charges now pending against Manafort or that would be relevant to a challenge to any of the warrants issued based on the affidavits, particularly given the prosecution’s stated willingness to set aside that information and not rely upon it to establish that there was probable cause to support the issuance of any warrant.’

Mueller obtained warrants to search Manafort’s email accounts and search the records from the man’s five phone numbers.

This was not Manafort’s first attempt to weasel out of his charges. Last week, the former campaign chair’s attorneys argued in federal court that the man who has been unceasingly loyal to Trump had been charged twice for the same crime – lying to federal officials.

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The attorneys maintained that the layering of charges might influence a jury negatively again their client.

Jackson disagreed. She ruled that she would give the jury “proper” instructions, and that would handle any  potential prejudice against Manafort.

Featured Image via Getty Images/Brooks Kraft.