Despite the president and his allies’ best efforts, there remain a core of officials within the Justice Department committed to seeing the Russia investigation through to its end, no matter where that takes them.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has hardly indicated an openness to the idea of just abandoning his investigation, as the president would no doubt prefer, instead ramping it up time and time again.
As a part of that investigation, Mueller’s team has now revealed that it got specific authorization from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a classified August 2, 2017 memo to investigate possible collusion between former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the Russian government.
Mueller’s team also got specific authorization to explore whether or not any crimes had been connected to massive payments Manafort received in his years of work for pro-Russia political interests in the Ukraine.
Mueller revealed as much in a court filing in response to a claim from Manafort that investigators had overstepped their bounds in bringing charges against him for crimes committed in connection to the aforementioned payments he received. Manafort has been charged with money laundering, amid an array of financial crimes. His claim to which the Mueller team was responding mirrors a claim underlying a civil suit against the special counsel that Manafort has brought, separate from the criminal case against him.
No matter how much Manafort would no doubt like it to be the case, considering the previously unreported upon memo from Rosenstein explicitly allowing Mueller to investigate Manafort and his possible corrupt foreign ties, the special counsel’s office has not overstepped their bounds with the scrutiny they’ve placed upon the former Trump campaign manager.
Explaining how his past of corruption is logically connected to the question of what steps Russia took to interfere in the 2016 election and whether those steps included cooperation with the Trump team, Mueller’s team stated as follows in a court filing:
‘[Mueller’s investigation] would naturally cover ties that a former Trump campaign manager had to Russian-associated political operatives, Russian-backed politicians, and Russian oligarchs. It would also naturally look into any interactions they may have had before and during the campaign to plumb motives and opportunities to coordinate and to expose possible channels for surreptitious communications. And prosecutors would naturally follow the money trail from Manafort’s Ukrainian consulting activities.’
Explicit authorization for an investigation of Manafort was not given in the initial order appointing Mueller last May in order to stay away from public confirmations of investigations of key individuals, according to the August 2 memo, which was attached to the above quoted Monday night court filing from Mueller’s team.
Considering how closely the president has long been documented to follow news about the Russia investigation, the news reports about Rosenstein granting Mueller specific authority to investigate Manafort are not exactly likely to win him the president’s favor.
In the past, the president has had at least one FBI official, former director James Comey, pushed out at least in part over their work in the Russia investigation. For now, Deputy AG Rosenstein has a job, and the president’s team has insisted he has no plans to fire Mueller.
There have been murmurs about the president seeking to push out Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however. If the president got someone more to his liking in the AG job, that individual could steer the Russia investigation more in the president’s favor. They would, of course, not be recused in the Russia investigation, as Sessions is.
Featured Image via Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images
