Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Too little too late?

In response to the legal strategy by the Manafort attorneys to claim that Robert Mueller did not have authority (under the terms of his special counsel) to investigate Manafort, Rosenstein released (leaked) a private memo that he penned to Special Counsel providing the authorization to investigate Manafort (and possibly others).



The memo was dated August 2nd, 2017 and was mostly redacted. But the public has been allowed to view the portion that allows Mueller to investigate Paul Manafort specifically, and this included his payments from Ukrainian business associates. 

The problem with the memo? Mueller had already been investigating Manafort, including the now famous middle of the night raid, which took place on July 26th. This falls into some murky legal and logical territory. Does Rosenstein have the authority to retroactively provide Mueller with legal cover for something that at the time appears to have been outside the scope of his investigation? 

One assumes that there will be times that things are discovered during the course of a general investigation, that would later justify a broader investigation. But conducting a late night raid of someone's residency would not be considered a chance discovery, inadvertent, or anything other than that person already being a target.

It would appear that this memo was entirely an attempt by Rosenstein to cover some asses, possibly including his own. It also suggests that the lack of criminal allegations in the original order of special counsel was a tactical move in order to allow for a special counsel, without informing anyone who (or what) the special prosecutor was investigating. Again, flaunting (if not legally violating) the legal standards of a Special Counsel appointment.

The question would be whether or not it satisfies the Manafort objection. By writing the memo, Rosenstein sort of concedes that the additional authorization was legally necessary. But that would also legally concede that such authorization did not exist at the time of Mueller's late night raid of Paul Manafort's residency. 

The idea that neither Rosenstein or Mueller was required to provide any list of criminal activities or criminal targets as a matter of strategy, sort of flies in the face of Special Counsel being created with a specific interest in mind. It would literally allow for Special Counsel to do whatever they wanted, and then the acting Attorney General could just retroactively approve it.

It seems like that was exactly what just happened, doesn't it? 

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