In a ruling today Judge T.S. Ellis ruled against Paul Manafort and said Robert Mueller’s case against him for bank fraud and tax fraud in illegally obscuring his relations with Viktor Yanukovych and the Russia supporting Ukrainian Party of Regions could proceed to trial on July 25th.
Manafort contended Mueller was operating outside the scope of his jurisdiction. The ruling by Ellis is particularly damaging to Manafort’s defense because Ellis is considered the Judge most sympathetic to him. Also it is almost the last procedural hurdle before the trial’s commencement, a similar motion before Judge Amy Berman Jackson having been previously dismissed.
Judge Jackson represents the District of Columbia, Judge Ellis Eastern Virginia. Charges have been brought in both jurisdictions.
Conviction is a near certainty. This case relies on fraudulent written records and representations so it’s all in Black and White on paper.
Virginia judge rules against Paul Manafort, will let fraud case continue
by Rachel Weiner, Washington Post
June 26, 2018
Ellis ultimately concluded that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had the right to bring the case, setting the stage for a trial that is scheduled to begin July 25. If there are no further delays, it will be the first case brought by Mueller’s team to come before a jury.
“Although this case will continue, those involved should be sensitive to the danger unleashed when political disagreements are transformed into partisan prosecutions,” the judge wrote.
Manafort, 69, is accused in both Alexandria and D.C. federal courts of illegally obscuring his work for a Russian-backed political party in Ukraine for over a decade. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
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In Virginia, Manafort’s attorneys had argued that the special counsel should never have been given latitude to pursue the fraud case because it did not stem from the probe of possible collusion between Trump officials and the Russian government.
Rather, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia had begun investigating Manafort’s business activities years before Trump launched his campaign for president.
Manafort, who in his career as a consultant advised both Republican presidents and foreign dictators, was struggling financially in 2005 when he was connected with Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych’s Party of Regions was dominated by oligarchs who made their fortunes after the fall of the Soviet Union. Manafort burnished their image at home with sharp rhetoric and in the U.S. with talk of working together and supporting NATO.
The effort succeeded — Yanukovych was elected president in 2010. But he was ousted four years later amid widespread anti-corruption protests.
In Virginia, Manafort is accused of illegally hiding millions of dollars prosecutors say he made from that work in offshore bank accounts and failing to pay taxes on it. When Yanukovych was unseated and the money dried up, prosecutors say Manafort lied about his income and debt to secure millions in new loans against expensive real estate he had bought with the illegal income.
In the District, Manafort is accused of failing to register as a foreign agent when he lobbied for Yanukovych and lying about doing so, while conspiring to launder the money he made.
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During a court hearing in Alexandria last month, Ellis sharply pressed the prosecutors, saying the government did not care about the fraud case and was interested only in “information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”
Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben pushed back in court, saying that since taking over the Manafort investigation, the special counsel has “considerably advanced and deepened our understanding” of the lobbyist’s actions.
Ellis’s tough questions for Mueller’s office at that May hearing cheered supporters of the president. Trump himself praised the judge last month from the stage of a National Rifle Association event in Dallas, calling him “something very special.”
The judge demanded an unredacted copy of an August 2017 memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to Mueller outlining the scope of the probe. The small portion of the memo that has been made public shows that Rosenstein specifically approved an investigation of whether Manafort “committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials.”
Prosecutors said in court that the rest of the memo does not concern Manafort. But at Ellis’s request, they gave the judge a copy of the entire memo under seal. It was not shared with Manafort’s defense team.
Manafort has put forward additional legal challenges that will be decided before his Virginia trial begins. He has disputed the constitutionality of searches of his Alexandria home and storage unit. He also wants Ellis to look into leaks to reporters of information about the case, alleging they were intended to bias jurors.
A hearing on all these matters is scheduled for June 29. Manafort’s trial in Washington is set for Sept. 17.
